Re-writing the story of my life and working to find my new happiness is an interesting journey. I’ve changed directions many times, desperately searching for God’s will and divine purpose; all the while clinging desperately to the parts of my life that make me happy. Happiness is one of those arbitrary attributes that everyone seems to think they deserve. An invisible “feeling bubble” that is supposed to encompass us because we breathe in and breathe out. Happiness has become a demand. An entitlement. Something we create out of thin air and post on social media to convince ourselves that we are, indeed, happy. I look at the world and see so many, like myself, searching high and low for “happy.”

I was on a train bound for this magical place called “happy” when the train veered off course, crashed and burned, and sent me spiraling as far from the tracks as possible. After licking my wounds and wandering around aimlessly for awhile, I started working towards pasteing myself back together and uncovering the ever elusive, “happy.” Armed with the word of God, the stubbornness of my mother, and the persistence of my father; I set out on a solo journey towards happiness.

And so far, you know what I have discovered? A long list of things that DON’T make me happy. Frankly, I’m disgruntled that a hard working gal, such as myself, is having such difficulties securing “happy.” Dating seems like a ridiculous notion, finding a place to call “home” is proving to be much harder than I thought, and my work is the most inconsistently consistent thing about my life. I DON’T like the ambiguity. I DON’T like being a misplaced person. I DON’T like the constant rejection of it all. These are just a few of the things that DON’T make me happy.

I also DON’T like feeling like I’m not being heard. I DON’T like feeling under-valued. I DON’T like feeling that I have to constantly defend my choices. Heck, I DON’T like feeling so deeply. I’m sick of all the feelings. Every. Last. Feeling. I’m over myself. I’m sick of hearing, “So, what are you going to do now?” You wanna know what I’m gonna do now? Eat a taco. Tacos are something I like. I can get behind a taco. That’s about as far ahead as I can count on life to work out…dinner plans.

Where is this crazy happiness that you all seem to have figured out? Seriously. I’m open to suggestions. But let me tell you something else I DON’T like…manufactured happy. I DON’T want filtered, watered down, had to sell my soul for this fake smile “happy.” I DON’T want the emptiness that comes with living a life my Savior wouldn’t be proud of. I DON’T want to lose the best parts of me, the parts I love the most. The bow-wearing, cheese loving, southern slang saying, card writing parts of me that may not add up to happy, but they add up to Katherine.

Wouldn’t that be the tragedy? In the search for universal happy, we lose the unique threads that make up our souls. I wish I was thinner. I wish I had my own little family. I wish I had acting contracts lined up for years to come. I wish I had a place to call my own. If I had all those things, would I be happy? Would my faith still be strong? Would my relationship with Christ still be the center of my life? Would I wake up every day hoping others saw God’s love in me? Or would that take a backseat to my earthly idea of “happy?” And when you put it that way, haven’t I been happy all along?

So, maybe this is an opportunity to take a rain check on the worldly “happy party.” Let others race around on the “happy” scavenger hunt. I’ll be eating a taco.

John 1:10 “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”