Are you happy?

Have you been asked this question recently?  What did you say?  What would you say? 

I spent the weekend with a dear friend from college.  I hadn't seen her in her new life in a new city since she had gotten married.  Now she is pregnant, moving into a new house, married to a great guy, and working a good job.  As I observed her life for the past few days, I knew she was happy.  I didn't need to ask.  It exuded from everything she did and said.  I always knew her to be a happy person.  But this was a new and different kind of happiness.  A calmer, more real sense of happy.

As we shared our days together, me drinking espresso, her tea, laughing and reminiscing, discussing and dreaming about the future, I found myself admiring her.  I admire the woman she has become and what she has done and is doing with her life.  Everything she spoke and did just radiated happiness.  And I wondered to myself...did I? 

Our lives are so different now, we no longer parallel each other.  Am I happy?

The answer  and the truth is...I am happy.

But I am not an end all happy.

I am a happy in waiting.  Does that make sense?

I guess what I mean is, there is more that I want in this life.  There is so much more, and the wanting does not negate any happiness that I feel and have.  I just know I am definitely not a nothing needs to change kind of happy.

It seems as though I've maybe said this before.  Maybe I am writing it now to remind myself that I am grateful.  There is so much gratitude in my heart and that equates to happiness in so many ways.

So, I go on and I keep living my life, knowing that there is more to be added into my happy heart.