I know that we are halfway into the new year and that making a resolution now seems a little late. But lately I have been on a quest to learn how to live. I want to learn how to be happy. To live content.
There are invisible frameworks that I live and move inside of. Expectations. Institutions. Social rules. Economic pressures. Narratives about what success is supposed to look like and how quickly it is supposed to happen. I have allowed those narratives to control my feelings of happiness like a puppet master pulling strings I barely noticed were attached to me.
The byproduct of this is that I don’t really know how to rest. I don’t know how to celebrate. I don’t know how to simply be.
I am always pushing.
Always trying to get somewhere else.
Always daydreaming ahead into the next version of life.
This week my husband and I took our high school graduate on a short getaway. At one point I looked over and watched my husband laughing with his whole body. His eyes were wide. His dimples deep. Completely present in the moment.
And suddenly I thought about a few years ago when he was being wheeled into surgery for a prostatectomy. Cancer had brought so much uncertainty into our lives. There was a time when I did not know what the future would hold for us.
Watching him laugh now felt different because of that.
It made me wonder how often, in the hustle and bustle of life, I look at him without really seeing him. Not seeing the miracle of his presence. Not seeing the gift of ordinary moments.
Knowing who and what I could have lost makes this moment even sweeter.
This moment with my daughter.
This moment at this age.
The laughs.
The ordinary conversations.
The small moments that seem so small while they are happening.
That is the thing to cherish.
Not the imaginary future where everything is finally settled.
Not the version of life where all the bills are paid, every goal is accomplished, every insecurity healed, every dream fulfilled.
Just this.
This fleeting ordinary moment that will one day become the thing I ache to return to.
Maybe learning how to live starts there.
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Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
From Big Bowl of Popcorn
Finding Alberta
A novel about love, grief, and what is remembered and misunderstood.
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