Freedom and happiness

"Doing what you like is freedom; Liking what you do is happiness"

I read this today and I thought to myself ,"how very true." My life for example, I always did what I was told to do, it did not matter if I liked it or not. I spent all of my teen years and most of my adulthood unhappy. At times I wished I was dead. I married, not for love but because it was "the right thing to do". I guess getting the crap beat out of you regularly was the "right" thing. I was supposed to be happy after all my boys were with their father. After numerous times of getting hurt and other unspeakable things, after being told by the police that he had the right to do those things because we were married, called a liar by him(he said that I squeezed my own throat and hit myself so hard to cause bruises to get him in trouble) even all that did not make me leave him. What did was when he beat me up and threw me on the floor and the light bulb in my head lit up and I knew then that no child should ever see or hear that. I left the next day when he was at work.

Throughout the years I did what I was told was the right thing. Went to school and got good grades. It was the right thing to do. It was not in the cards for me to get a college education, so I have had many lower paying jobs in my life time. In these jobs I did the right thing, I worked hard, and got a pay check. At one point I even had my own business. It was one of the first times in my life I felt any confidence. I did it all from the actual customer contact to the ordering of supplies to producing the product. Every thing but the books, now that is something I can not do. I had that business for 19+ years and had to close it due to my failing health.

I am happy now. I am at home on the river. I have my grand kids and my kids. I have been given the freedom to stay at home and enjoy those things. I have been given the love that gives me so much happiness. I have been given the freedom to do what I like and with that came happiness for the first time in years.