Where is your "Happy Place"?

I’ll be in my happy place…

This is my favorite phrase—especially at the end of a long day in the bakery when my feet are screaming to be soaked, or elevated, or massaged, or tranquilized,  and my brain is begging to shift into that passive “mush” mode—you know, that don’t-make-me-think-beyond-turning-a-page-or-channel state of mind.

Aaaahhh, the happy place… Mine is perhaps the most hideous looking, yet comfortable love seat known to mankind—an offering from a neighbor who said, “take it, puh-leeze—it’s yours!” This pillowy, happy place love seat is nestled in the corner of my bedroom next to a desk housing my dinosaur computer—the one not hooked up to the Internet to distract me. You see, not only do I often lay in a vegetative state in my happy place reading or watching my favorite collection of DVD’s (can you say, How many movie adaptations of Austen novels can the BBC possibly produce?), I also do all of my writing there.

 

 

So now that I’ve fessed up, and disappointed you all with the revelation of my true-to-life happy place, I’d like to know what you envision when you think of the words, “happy place.” It will likely be different for everyone, but we can all dream...

Soaking in a Jacuzzi, sipping a tall, cold, diet Coke (or insert your beverage of choice)? <Nodding>

 

 

Kicking back in a soft recliner watching the latest episode of, I dunno… Duck Dynasty or Downton Abbey perhaps? (Yes, please. Downton Abbey.)

 

 

Strolling through the park, slurping the sides of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream heaped into a waffle cone. (Uh, huh.)

 

 

Sitting behind the wheel of a red Ferrari, with no place to go and nuthin’ to do…but cruise the countryside? (Yup, yup…keep dreamin’!)

 

 

Lounging on a white sandy beach…in Maui…with your honey by your side? (Now we’re talkin’!)

 

 

Okay, maybe I got carried away. But most of us associate a happy place with an actual location. Well, I have a proposal…

Why don’t we make our Happy Place a state of mind? A feeling? Someplace we can go to no matter where in the world we are or what trials we may be experiencing.

When I make this mental shift, I can find my happy place in so many “locations” in my mind…and totally transform my physical and emotional state.

I can find my happy place…

…in the smell of my grandson hair.

 

Or the memory of my parents dancing.

I can be in my happy place whenever I'm by my sweetheart's side,

or surrounded by my children,

or watching them surrounded by theirs.

I can even find my happy place in times of uncertainty--times when life seems to flip me upside down--because with faith, and the knowledge that God is always by my side, I will eventually land on my feet. I always do.

So where is YOUR "Happy Place"?



Tamra Torero is Wife to Paco, Momma to nine, Grandma of two, Bakery Manager, author of Shayla Witherwood: A Half-Faerie Tale and co-author of a Christmas novel, The Lost Son, with her son, Preston Norton. She has discovered the hard (or perhaps all-to-easy) way that writing in her happy place can be less-than productive in the reclined position (yes, it's possible but not recommended) if you want to remain awake. Sometimes she doesn't.