I know what it means to be sad, afraid and angry, but what does it mean to be truly, truly happy?  Lately, I find myself feeling more and more bored with life—and it’s not the kind of boredom that comes from depression.  It is a very different kind of boredom because it is SO much lighter!  It is hard to explain, but it just feels lighter.  Depression boredom is heavy and is based on a bunch of fearful thoughts that lead nowhere good. 

This new kind of boredom comes from liberating myself from the negativity that comes with grief.  I am systematically erasing each negative thought such as, “I can’t raise a daughter on my own!” or “I hate they way society makes me feel!”  I AM raising a daughter on my own and society ONLY has as much power over me as I allow.

      I am so accustomed to being stressed out and angry that when the negativity is disintegrated, I have so little to think about that I get bored.  Regular daily life doesn’t seem so hard as you start leaving grief behind.  Thinking about how fun summer will be for Anisha and I is far more emotionally elevating than thinking about why am I doing this alone? 

     Wow!  This is how other people must feel, or I at least I hope they do.  To not worry about childcare, finances and career.  Yes, it truly sucks to be visually impaired, but it feels like the deaths that I have experienced have prepared me for figuring out how to be a thriving single parent with a vision issues.  With a lazy eye, catching or hitting a baseball has always been challenging, but so what?  I will still try to catch or hit a baseball even if I get hit sometimes—because that is living!  Courage doesn’t mean you feel no fear; it means you continue in the face of fear.

     Courage is everything and it comes from adversity.  Whenever something threatens to trigger fear, I just think, I have been through much worse.  In high school, I played the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of OZ, also, like all Sikh men, my middle name, “Singh,” means lion.  So for me, this new found boredom/happiness means that for the first time in my life I know what it means to truly ROAR!