I would rather!

I would rather be happy, than be sad. And, as life shows you, there are so many reasons to be sad, that you could spend it all, wollowing in a pool of your own misery. Happiness doesn't come for free, as it does not, nor will it ever, come for money. But it costs you. It costs you the will to learn not to expect, it costs you the feelings you invest in your loved ones, the ones that you have no choice but to love. It costs you the days and nights spent in conscious struggle with yourself, when you try to learn that not all things happen TO YOU. Some things just happen. And you are in the way.
I would rather do the things that I love, and that make me happy. But not all of them are possible. So, instead, I learn to be happy with the things I do, because they don't define me. They just complete the picture of my life.
I would rather people liked me, but I am not about to change the way I think and the things I believe in, for someone's comfort. So, instead, I learn to like the ones I meet, see the bright human design in every one, and get on with my life, with lessons learned from every one of them.
I would rather be somewhere else. In a distant land, full of towering mountain shadows, deep dark forests with smell of millenial pines, rivers running mad in deep valleys. But I am not. And I smell the strange plants of this new  land of mine, and watch the strange sun coming from a  wrong direction, and think to myself "this is my new world, and I will learn to see it with new eyes, and love it the way I love the old one.
I would rather years didn't go by so fast, and the feeling that old age is just around the corner would not be so implicit. But they are. And it is. And every time I look into my children's eyes it's becoming more obvious. It doesn't feel like it though. If I didn't have them, to compare me against, I would never realize the amount of days, hours and minutes that is now forming memories behind me. The only thing that makes me happy, is the amount of days, hours, and minutes, that their presence promises to turn into memories from now on!

With hope,
A