Happiness

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(I wrote this a few weeks ago but forgot to post!)

For my July track out, it was very busy for us. First with my mom and Summer coming for a week, then a week where I was busy with catch up chores as well as summer errands, and then Taylor came for a week. Once Taylor left I had 2 days before going back to teaching. Since my break ended, Clayton and I have been in a grind mindset, understandably. Clayton started studying for the PE exam, I started going back to work, I was planning out our meals getting super organized, we've been extra frugal with our spending, and just ultimately super focused on our day to day tasks. It's felt really good to get back into our routine, but I have been surprisingly reminded of some things in the last few days that I wanted to write about.

I'm someone who naturally feels pretty happy in every day to day life. But the past few days I've been reminded of how important it is to find and appreciate true happiness in life. Let me explain. 

Many of you know last year teaching was TOUGH. And I would like to pat myself on the back for really pushing myself to be positive through the chaos. Before I started teaching, my school had a few teacher workdays with no students to get ourselves settled. Subconsciously during these days, I had been doubting my longevity in this profession. The plan was for me to teach for a few more years at least, but I wasn't sure if I could do more than one more year. I was ignoring these feelings, but I was really nervous about having another really hard year of teaching. So when I started my first day of teaching, and I truly was blown away by the students this year and their behavior, I couldn't help but smile all day. (For the record, last year the students had already filled ISS on the first day, and the principal had to talk to the students about the crazy behavior on day 3). After the first two days of teaching, I felt my love for teaching melt in. I was instantly excited for the year, and not just preparing for something hard, but was genuinely excited to do it. When I drove home on Friday, I cried happy tears because I didn't stop teaching. When I came home, Clayton instantly told me I looked so much happier after going to work. 

As you can probably tell, I doing realize when I'm not happy until I am happy and look back. 

The next day Clayton and I were relaxing, and watching our show 1883. This show is terribly sad describing a family's journey west to Oregon. When the show ended in it's depressing ending. I cried obviously, but was surprised to feel so happy that that was not me lol. 

Clayton and I checked the time and realized we had some time to go out and do something, and Clayton suggested we go to the lake. As we're driving, the weather was perfect. Windows were down, we weren't talking, blaring Sienna Spiro, just amazing vibes. We'd only seen this lake on one of our bike rides, so I didn't know what it was going to be like. I haven’t went to watch a sunset in a while. I was so happy to be there. We even saw fireflies which I’ve never seen before. 

These past few days have showed me how important it is to prioritize things that bring you happiness. It really put things in perspective that the grind of work and every tasks aren’t the most important thing in life which I sometimes forget. 

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