Happy Dances

This has been a pretty happy week for me. I didn't have a lot of time to think about it until I was in yoga class on Thursday evening. Usually I get there, lay down and cover my eyes with my hands until class begins, trying to become as calm as I can and put aside the busy-ness of my usual week. This time, as I lay there, I felt a distinct welling-up of ... happiness. No, life isn't perfect for me. I've got many things I long to do but can't, plenty of things I have to do that I don't really want to do, and any number of things that are being asked of me that are frustrating, boring, even exasperating. But, most of the time, lately, I find myself feeling at least quietly happy. And sometimes I find myself "doing a happy dance."

As far as the quietly happy, I think it is partly that my nearly 10-year struggle with low-level chronic depression has lifted (the best I can guess, it began one year when there were a string of difficult things happening, ranging from a medical issue to war breaking out to a murder on campus to what can only be described as a toxic co-worker). I've been depression-free for about 3 years now. I can't say for sure what made it finally go away, but I actually felt (and still feel) like a weight has been lifted off my heart. I was never depressed the way people in the drug ads in magazine look -- it was a quiet, gnawing weight that never went away. I still could feel happiness and sadness and the whole spectrum of positive and negative emotions, but that gnawing weight was still always there. It is such a relief to live without it.

And, the happy dance syndrome appears mostly at work. I find myself, for the first time in many, many years, whispering to myself, "I love my job!" I haven't said it out loud, but it creeps into my mind unbidden sometimes when I'm driving to work or finishing up a meeting with a student. Apparently, though, it has been noticed. At our student affairs division staff meeting the other day, the Dean described a new award he and the student affairs leadership had decided to give out occasionally. He described it as not much more than a public "pat on the back" and said there were actually two he wanted to give this first time. Well, the second one was for me! Along with being a very gratifying indication that my hard work and talents are appreciated (frankly a public message that doesn't get said to employees at my place of work very often), it was represented by two $25 gift cards. My favorite part of that gift, of course, is thinking about what I might spend it on -- oh, the anticipation itself brings on a happy dance!

Here's a quietly happy picture.