Happiness is Bursting Out

My growth lately has been epic. I’m making new connections. I’m trying new things. I’m traveling more. I’m giving voice to new gifts.

In sum: I’m being me.

Sometimes you have to put it all out there. Just today, I published all of these happiness reflections into my first nonfiction work with a little more of my back story. It’s funny, but sending all my reflections further out into the world was big for me. There’s no more dancing on the corner and playing it safe. No, it’s time to dance on the table for everyone to see—which I actually did in Paris a few weeks ago when a man asked me if I wanted to.

Happiness is bursting out.

And then last night, I had to paint. I mean the kind of painting that involved me grabbing my rarely used easel from upstairs and pulling out all my paints and brushes. I painted and painted, telling myself not to think too much. We stop ourselves when we do. We nitpick. We criticize. And all of that stifles us. I let my hand move. I let it burst free from all past constraints, teachers who’d said I couldn’t draw, that I had no artistic talents, that my brothers were the artists in the family and not me. They were wrong to say it, and I was wrong to believe it for a time. But they can silence the truth no more. Nothing can.

I drew a mermaid (the picture you see here). Nothing could hold the mermaids back either, you see. They swam amidst sharks in the mighty ocean without fear. They laid on the warm rocks and played, letting the mist cool their skin. They were free and beautiful and powerful. Like me. Like we all are.

I am bursting out. Bursting all the confines that have kept me small, down, silent. It’s time to expand and allow everything I am inside to unfurl—like the most beautiful, fragrant rose in the garden.
Are you bursting? Or are you hiding some of your greatness like I used to? Come on. Join me. Take my hand. We’ll burst out together.

Picture painted by Ava Miles