Drum roll, please… Happiness. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; happiness makes me most anxious. I bet you didn’t see that coming.

Whenever things are going well, I’m not talking about perfection but about having a good day. There is a spot in my mind that doesn’t trust it.

My life now has been the easiest it’s been in a very long time. I’m living with the man I love in a beautiful home in an area surrounded by the best nature has to offer. My children are settled, I have the cutest, most intelligent, happiest granddaughter on the planet, my job is fascinating, and my co-workers are now friends, and yet I find myself waiting for the shoe to drop.

I’ve researched and know that this thought process comes from my childhood. Doesn’t everything? I don’t blame my parents. Lord knows they did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time. Neither one had an example of parenting, so we were experiments. They were much better at grandparenting.

When you know better, you do better, and hopefully, I did that with my children, and so on, until the cycle is broken.

Now, back to that old shoe about to drop. I learned that this feeling results from a confusion between approval and love and worth, which sounds right. Literally the story of my life.

Recently, actually yesterday, I was discussing my sudden sense of fear with a friend. We concluded that I have spent most of my adult life being superhuman in one way or another. Whether it was in my role at work or in my family. Always the dependable helper who would lay across a railroad track to shine for 2 seconds. Exhausting, right?

Having someone in your life who just gets it is so refreshing.

Fast forward to the present, where none of those needs exist. Oh, yea, it can rock your world. For the first time, probably since I left the womb, I don’t have the need to prove anything to anyone except myself. It’s the equivalent of landing in a foreign country without a translator.

I aim to accept that I am worthy of good things and that happiness should never make me feel like I’m about to lose my shit. Happiness is the truth!

Enjoy the Ride!