Balance=Happiness

         Balance? What's that? Happiness? What's that? Is that when clothes and things are all over your little apartment? Is it when you are eating pre made meals for supper? Is it coming home every night stressing about things that happened at work? Is it not seeing and talking to your friends as much as you should? Is it when you are in your 20s and you have no idea what to do in life? Is it when you are exploring the possibilities that life has for you? Is it when you want a husband and your own family in your life? Where and when do we find that balance=happiness?
          Yes, these are some of examples of how I feel about my life right now and what I need to find in it besides all these things. I'll admit I don't have any balance in my life yet. I graduated from college 4 years ago and still haven't found balance and happiness in my "adult" life. I'm still searching. Don't get me wrong I love where I am at now but I know there is more to life. There is a time where having your own family means everything. There is a time where having someone to go along with you in life feels great. There is a time where you just want more but yet you don't know how to get it and/or it seems it will take forever. Yet there is a time also where you just feel stuck when everyone else is moving on and leaving you behind.
             I can't go into details just because of safety for people and friends but I've thought a lot about where I want to be in the next 15 years and it is not by myself working hard and no one besides me in a small apartment. I want to have a job that will pay a decent amount and that I can sort of make my own schedule with. I want to have a husband and children and to be living out in the country in a nice house that I can decorate. I want someone by my side that I can keep encouraging and it wouldn't be strange or awkward.
             Recently, I have really been thinking about going back to grad school and getting a master's so I can get a better job. I have also been thinking about what will make me happy. How will I get there and so on? I did something for a friend, out of the blue, and I don't know how it made the friend feel but it made feel happy. Happier then I have felt in a couple of years. Knowing that I did something for someone on a special day even though I have no idea what thoughts were going through my friend's mind at the time. I encouraged and I miss doing that but when is there time in my busy schedule now. I feel like all I do is work and come home and go straight to sleep because I'm sleepy and emotionally drained.
               I know I wouldn't want a husband like that if it can be helped so why be that way and think I could find a husband while like that. I want to spend time with my husband and family without being so sleepy when I get home. I want to be able to make a decent meal and put the children to bed. This might be crazy talk to some of you and some of you might not believe that I'm thinking about all these things already but I am 27. I know you are "suppose" to explore life in your 20s but I only have two more years left like that and then what.
                I want to find the balance so I can add more to my life. I want to make room for more in my life but right now I don't feel like there is any room anywhere and I don't like that. I feel like I'm letting people down because who wants to be around a stressed out person all day everyday. I wouldn't want to be. Happiness is not everything, I know, but it is a big part of life. Isn't it? If you are not happy, then you can't focus on the things God wants you to focus on. You can't make a difference if you're not happy. People like happy people not stressed out ones.
                 With certain people in my life right now, I feel like maybe God is giving me a second chance at those friendships since I have explored a lot more in the past four years and I know more of what I really want now. Strange how Bentonville, AR can be a place of exploration yet you know there are people near by that you can always go back to when you know nothing else works out. It is strange how people can be so close in distance yet so far away in their thinking.
                   In a way, God has a purpose for everything that happens in life and I think His purpose for a friend of mine passing away this past November was to see what life was really about and who I really was. I'm not some city girl that loves to work non-stop. I'm a country girl that loves to spend time with family and wants a family of her own someday if Lord willing. I'm a girl that loves the outdoors and will do anything outdoors as long as I do it with the people that I care most about in life.  In a way, I think God's purpose was for me to find what made me really happy and go after it while find balance in everything and that is what I'm working on. It is hard but it will be so worth it in the end.