They always tell you that you will find happiness. Someday, one day you will find it. But I didn't find my happiness. It found me.
I wasn't looking for it, quite the opposite, I was done with it, I had agreed never to find it. I was ready to live my life without "happiness". As terrible as it may sound, I had resigned myself to it. It was just the way it was.
At least that's what I thought. But anyone can be wrong sometimes, right?
It was June 16th 2017. My car was packed with all my belongings. The move was spontaneous, but never had I regretted it. It had been a small thing that had made me do it. It was something so unimportant that it had not been or wouldn't ever be understandable to others. It was a feeling, one that told me I was home now.
A place near Tampa, Florida. Small and beautiful, just as I had always wanted it to be.
The ocean was calming. Some days it was gentle and still and other days it was like a raging storm. One could think that the sea imitated our moods.
I lived in a bungalow among many others. It was so different, so new and it felt right. My life was simple and my heart was happy.
The days were the same, had a good rhythm and yet were never boring.
One day I met a little girl. I was going to hang up my laundry on the sunny side of the house to dry, when I tripped over a stone at the edge of the path between the bungalows and my laundry spread all over the ground. I had just been about to pick them up when a small hand handed me a shirt that was lying on the grass. "Hi, I'm Mary." she said with the sweetest smile. Mary couldn't have been older than eleven years old and yet she seemed much older to me. She told me that she lived in the house right next to me.
At that point, I had only lived there for a few weeks. Mary told me that she lived with her uncle and was already going to college because she was gifted. We had made ourselves comfortable on the patch of grass next to the little path and the words just bubbled out of her. Mary looked so happy and joyful as she told me all the crazy stories she had already experienced in her short life.
She told me that she and her uncle had been watching me when I moved in. I had to giggle at the thought because I had seen them peeking through the window and it had been a really cute sight. She had her head propped up on his and I could see her talking energetically to him.
When Mary had left, she also left behind a cheerfulness that filled me throughout the whole day.
I saw her uncle often at the little bar in town. It was not any hangout for old alcoholics; the bar had a certain charm. Everything was full of decorations and colorful lights. There were all kinds of pictures and all kinds of people. But he was just sitting there at the bar with a beer in his hand. He looked so utterly complete, as weird as that may sound. And even though his shirts always had a slight trace of oil, he looked attractive and not shabby. Maybe it was just those light oil marks that made him so interesting to me.
I had never been an extrovert. I prefer to be to myself rather than in a huge crowd. That's why I never approached him. Not because he was always surrounded by people, the opposite was the case, he always sat alone on the same bar stool. But the way he sat there gave off a quiet aura and I didn't dare to break into it.
Until one day, Mary had knocked on my door holding the hand of a very attractive guy, with light traces of oil on his shirt. He had a crooked smile on his lips and looked a little insecure. "Frank wants to ask you something." she had said, grinning at me and giving her uncle a warning look.
That had been the beginning of something beautiful.
When I think back to the time when I thought I was down on my luck, I have to smile. Happiness has found me. And it came with such force that I could never have dreamed of. I did not find happiness. But happiness found me.
And in my case, luck came in the person of a drop-dead cute, gifted little girl and her incredibly attractive, adorable uncle to find me.
If you ever doubt that you have lost happiness, always remember: It has not forgotten you, it is just waiting for the right moment. And when that time comes, you will be fully taken by it.
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"Lillie? Is there a God?" she asked softly. Mary, Frank and I were snuggled up in a blanket on the beach, looking out into the setting summer sun.
I lifted my head from Frank's shoulder and looked down at her. "What do you think?" i asked her. "I don't know." she said, shrugging her shoulders.
"You don't have to know. You have to feel it. If you can feel it in your heart, then he exists. Everyone has to decide that for themselves."
She snuggled into my arm, and I gently stroked her blonde hair. Frank's arm was wrapped around my shoulder as he kissed my hair.
"I think he brought us together. Like a family." she whispered looking up to me and Frank. My little piece of bliss.
