The reality is that the intensity of our joy is in direct proportion to the pain we had to endure to reach/achieve the joy. Think childbirth. Think bad fight with beloved (followed by make-up sex). Think New England Winter.

Much as I dream about living in a climate where it is 80 degrees every day of the year (and I do). If I ever acted on this fantasy (and I might), I would be denying myself the intensity of the euphoria I feel right this minute. Houston, we have Spring. It is sunny and 54 degrees outside right now and I am giddy. High on life. It isn't possible for me to explain how good I feel or how deeply I feel this pleasure. Let me just say, 14 days straight of -15 degrees in January.

Oh joy. No Southern Californian can know what I feel today. They may scorn my raw emancipation from the protracted contraction of cold, but I don't care. It's warm! It's sunny! I'm alive!

It's got me to thinking. Perhaps we place too much emphasis on ease in this culture. (If my husband we're to stumble across this post he would choke on his Ovaltine reading what I just wrote as I am unabashedly the spa queen sans pareil). So, let me just say. I'm all about pleasure. But, sometimes (many times?) the greatest pleasures are waiting for us on the other side of tremendous struggle and much pain (physical or emotional). Gotta remember that next time I am hurting through something that I think is going to kill me (or makes me want to kill myself).

Right now, I'm going outside, sticking my bare feet in the cold mud, turning my face up to the sun and being here. I made it through another winter. Ahh, sweet release.

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