“There is only one happiness in this life–to love and be loved” – George Sand

Bullshit.

Because I know for a fact that the color pink, consuming the all-American cheeseburger and french fries combo, running outside in sub-100-degree weather (welcome to Texas, y’all), and sleeping in past noon all have the power to stimulate the production of endorphins in my body to create the ever-elusive feeling of “happiness“. And all of aforementioned things are a whole hell of a lot less complicated than the concept of love, thank you very much.

For the past couple of weeks and as of right now, I have felt and still feel upset, confused, exhausted, angry, depressed, conflicted, and, interestingly enough, content…all at the same time? I miss my mother more than ever. At the same time, I am beyond grateful for the blessed network of family (my grandfather, grandmother, and brothers) and sincere friends (you know who you are) who have put up with my temperamental mood swings, my incessant worrying, my horrible habit of dropping off the face of the technological earth for days at a time (i.e. forgetting that I have a cell phone to answer and a Facebook page to maintain), and my mountain of other miscellaneous imperfections.

I’ve recently found myself repeatedly given the same nugget of advice: “Do what makes you happy“. In theory, this should be an enormously easy feat to accomplish, but my dilemma is that I am not entirely certain what makes me really and truly, inexplicably happy. I’ve found that trying to make yourself [while simultaneously making others] happy just seems to further complicate matters. And to top it all off, it seems that the only thing I am certain of is that I don’t know what I want.

I take that back.

I know that one day I want to be the proud owner of a bright pink moped. I know that I want to be successful in all of my pursuits. I know that I want to make my family proud of me. I know that my dream home that I envisioned for myself in the 3rd grade has not changed in the slightest-I still want it to have a balcony where I can eat breakfast while watching the sunrise and a grandiose library that will be home to thousands of beautiful books (which might very well be threatened by the distressing and unfortunate bankruptcy declaration issued by Borders). I know that I have an intangible, petrifying fear of being alone and unwanted, and that I want someone whose love and charisma will sweep me off feet. Pardon the cliche. I know that I never want to hurt anyone. And I know that I want to be happy.

Half of me is you, and the other half is yours…