Next Stop Happiness: Basking in Life, As Is

"It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book...There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other."

-Michael Cunningham, The Hours

In a consumer society like ours, we believe that happiness is just around the corner. We dream of being happy when we get a new bag or job, a shinier car or boyfriend, a bigger apartment or boobs. The grass is always greener--all we have to do is attain something (publish the book, meet the right guy, nab the corner office with the grander title), then, and only then, we'll finally be ahhhhhhh happy!

But what if you aim to be happy right now? What if, instead of giving your all to the quest of something in the near future that'll bring you happiness, you choose to be happy now? What if you stopped looking around the corner and truly basked in what you have now? And radically seek to be happy here?

I haven't updated Musings on Love in a while because I've committed my brainpower to and energy on the completion of my book, a memoir based on my journey of reconciling my past with my forming future. For years, I always thought that the next thing (i.e. moving to New York, getting my Masters, becoming an editor, making Aaron my boyfriend, publishing my book, etc.), would bring me ultimate happiness, that if I just put the work in and suffered long enough, that this all encompassing, deserving, life-altering happiness would be mine for the taking--and I'd bask in the warm sunlit beauty of optimal contentment.

I've come to realize that I've been very very wrong all along.

Life in Pages: Tracy McMillan's 'I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway'

"Any chick old enough to have acquired a Diet Coke habit has heard that your relationships with men will be based—one way or another—on the one you had with your father. Three wedding dresses later, I'm here to say that…it did, indeed, all come down to Daddy."

-Tracy McMillan

AS I FALL deeper into my relationship with Aaron, I'm realizing that my expectations of him are actually, against all odds, aligning with reality. But with this sense of contentment, stability and romantic fulfillment, comes uncertainty.

There seems to be this air of apprehension—and even more overarching a difficulty within me that's holding me back from moving forward and just being with Aaron. And it's all based on one thing, or shall I say, one person.

In Love & Life Together: 'All Endings Are Also Beginnings'

"Within two days of our meeting we knew we were in love together and had to be in life together."

-Maya Angelou on then-husband Paul DuFeu

LAST MONDAY, I woke up at a junction of two intersecting love lines, where my storied past with X met the pending prospect of my future with Aaron. In a span of hours, I would cross this intersection, inking my signature on two separate contracts: a lease agreement and a divorce settlement.

"All endings are also beginnings," Mitch Albom wrote in The Five People You Meet in Heaven. "We just don't know it at the time."

At 10:30 that morning, I signed three sheets of paper in the presence of a notary, dissolving my six-year marriage (1 year happy, 2.5 sad, and 2.5 separated). Hours later, I met Aaron in an Upper West Side brownstone where we signed a lease for our first home together — a place that would house all of our hopes and dreams and enable our relationship to fully grow.

The Year Behind: Moving Forward Without Looking Back

"I'm the little one today. 

Tomorrow you could be. 

As long as we talk before passing the umbrella,

we'll always have it." 

-Aaron

The hard thing about moving forward is not looking back - and not looking back has been a major battle of mine for the past month.

My last post, in which I detailed my embarrassing snooping moment, I edited, withheld and treaded lightly while detailing how things went down. And although I'm currently writing about leaving the past behind, I feel I can't move forward with my readers without honestly displaying what I found, how I felt and what I did during that 10-month period of gray area with Aaron.

Here's my attempt at lying naked before you all.

Snap Judgement: 9 Things I Learned About Love From the Sex and the City 2 Trailer

Don't lie; you're counting down the days until the sequel to Sex and the City: The Movie hits theaters (May 27, to be exact!)…but on a more serious note, as I've done in previous breakdowns of SATC episodes, let's explore what I've learned about love from the delicious series and its new trailer:

Poke. Prod. Peek: When Insecurity Interrupts Bliss

I've learned that it's a difficult task for a reflective person to maintain bliss. There's something unnerving in finally getting what you want and what you believe you deserve. For me this blissful moment came to a head when I let doubt enter my relationship.

In the month since Aaron committed to a life with me, he'd been the epitome of what I dreamt a good partner could be: attentive, thoughtful, eager, kind, forward thinking and beautiful. Although I rejoiced in my coupled-up bliss, a nagging insecurity haunted me—and that insecurity led me to the first remarkably stupid mishap in our relationship: I poked.