You know the phrase and the desire, an almost desperate yearning to be “happy go lucky”. What does this even mean? To me, it is a wish to be lucky so much that every thing is basically a fairy tale. We yearn for utopia. Entire cities have been built trying to attain it. Fairhope, AL is an example, and they did get pretty close. My hubs and I love to escape the busy city landscape of Mobile sometimes and drive across the bay way, only forty-five minutes from our home to a lil slice of heaven. We walk around, have some Mr. Gene Bean ice cream or sit in Page and Palette on the corner and sip a latte while talking about how we can slow down. We’ll walk around the corner of the immaculately groomed streets filled with perfect lush seasonal flowers bursting out of beautiful planters all around to the adorable “frufru” shops as I lovingly refer to them. All stress seems to melt away, and we all but skip down the streets in bliss.

But then, reality begins to sink in as the clock ticks, and we realize that back to reality we are about to go.

But now it’s different. That country song, “Just Another Day in Paradise” plays in my head, but this time I don’t have to figure out how to see it that way, but I ACTUALLY do see my life that way, whether in Mobile where we work, do Biology and, run the roads constantly crisscrossing the city as “super mom,” or whether we are in Fairhope, where we lose track of time darting from store to store and walking down the pier to catch a sun set kiss as Kevin serenades me with his guitar.

Here’s the deal….one definition of happy is “characterized by good luck or fortune,” so we get this scary disappointed feeling when we think that happiness is only a fluke or a fairy tale. Realize that fairy tales aren’t real. (I just learned this simple fact a few years ago!) They are simply our yearning for heaven, and that need for utopia will only be satisfied on the other side.

So here’s my challenge to you today, so you’ve been disappointed with life? Me too. So life just sucks sometimes? Yep, mine too. So you’re not skipping through life with a lollipop in hand? I wasn’t either until I decided to go get my lollipop and enjoy it ANYWAY! The Bible talks about enjoying a feast right in the midst of the enemy. So no matter what is going on in your life, join me and start skipping! Skip over the enemies of sadness and disappointment and grab your proverbial lollipop saying, “Oh well, happy anyway!”

Happy Monday!