When I first started this blog, my father was the first person to say, “alivety is not a word, what are you doing.” You see my dad is a scholar and thus making up words is not something he quite understands. But being the weirdo creative person I am, I make up words all the time (you should try it). The word alivety, however was a word I started using during a hard time for me last year. I wanted to keep track of the moments where immense joy or “aliveness” came out of intense pain or “deadness” and so when I needed to describe it in my journal I would call it alivety.

We often see life as made up the big things like graduation, or marriage, or having a baby, or retiring. And so we go through life waiting for it to start, waiting for the next big thing.  Often I need to remind myself of the little things. I forget that my little heart is beating without my help, and that my lungs know how to work without my direction, and that no matter how hard I try not to I have to blink. I forget to be thankful for the very fact that I am alive. Sometimes the reminder is a beautiful sunset, or a warm shower after a cold day, or a stack of pancakes. 

The sad thing is that when we try and distract ourselves from the deep pains of life, we end up distracting ourselves from those deep joys as well. They don’t seem as rich or full, or maybe sometimes we don’t even see them at all. In moments when I really get this, I am discouraged. Usually it’s after spending three straight hours stalking people on Facebook or after inhaling my lunch in a record 5 seconds and realizing I didn’t taste a thing. What happened to experiencing things? What happened to allowing life to course through our veins in every moment joyful and painful?

I truly experience life in the mos unexpected situations; like break-ups, or the flu, or intense fear. At these times, I am very much aware of what is going on around me. There are so many little things piercing my heart, and so many little things soothing my soul. Many of you can relate.That morning after your heart has been broken, when you wake up and finally feel a glimpse of hope. When you’ve been sick for days and you finally feel better enough to eat some cinnamon toast. Coming to the realization that fear is just a feeling and it’s not going to kill you.

 Life at every turn is a gift. It cannot afford to be missed or rushed past.

Almost daily I look in my closet and decide that I need more heels because if I had them I would look cute and put together all the time like Carrie from Sex and The City. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t really wear heels, I just always want to be the kind of person who does. Most days I put on my beat up beloved UGGS or my moccasins or my flip-flops and trot off to wherever it is that I am going. But how cool would I be if I wore heels to the grocery store or the movies or even out to breakfast!

People would wish that they were as stylish and daring as I was; they would look at me jealously as I would walk down the cereal aisle and pass through the deli section. So I tell myself, you NEED more heels so that you are a someone that other someone’s notice.

Last year at this time I was planning my future and making subconscious lists in my head of the things that I would need in order to be content. And every day of every year from the moment I was born, I was wishing for something that I didn’t have, hoping for something different. But here I am, at a place in my life where I have so many of those things that I wished for, so many of those things that I “needed” in order to be content. But it still doesn’t feel like enough. I am still craving more.

I know that I am not alone in this. Most people I know would say that they have lived their life the very same way; the rest of them are probably lying. So what is the key to contentment? What “gets” us there?

I am sorry to say that is the problem right there. I have never felt less content than when I am planning my path to contentment. In fact, contentment has nothing to do with planning or control or perfection. It is completely about the moment and connection to self. Contentment is never found in striving to be something you are not.

How many millions of dollars do human beings spend on searching for contentment and peace? How many drugs do we consume and sexual relationships do we jump into and how much reality TV do we watch thankful that we are not as disgusting as the people that we are watching. And if no one else will admit it I will. I admit that every single reality show I watch makes me feel like I am a complete and total angel, blessed beyond words, the farthest thing from mean and conceited and selfish.

 I read a book once about all of the beautiful little things in life. It was a book about a journey, not a destination. A story of islands of contentment and peace, not a constant euphoric feeling. It’s about a beautiful sunset, a dinner with friends, resting in the arms of someone you love. Contentment is there when you stop looking for it. It is s much there in the long hours of the job that you hate as it is there in your once In a lifetime vacation to Hawaii. It makes no difference where you are as long as you are there loving yourself, loving others, loving your creator from the deepest depths of your soul.

So what are your heels? What are those things that you feel like you need in order to belong, to be noticed, to be content and happy.  Who knows, you may find that you actually don’t really wear heels anyway.