The Expectation of Happiness

Everyone thought about what they were going to be when they grew up, thought about the difference between their dreams and what they might settle for, about why they might settle, what cost benefit analysis might make them settle. We knew our ideas of happiness would change, but we looked at our parents, our friends, our parents' friends and our friends' parents, and came up with ideas of converting money, education and opportunity into happiness, ideas of how many children we'd have, how we'd raise them, what our spouses might be like, where and how we might meet them.

I wondered why I'd be happy with my wife, why anyone was happy committing to, settling for, settling down with, any one other person for the rest of their lives. As a child I understood that would have to be a very special person, but when I looked around at the people around me, I didn’t see anyone even close to such a person, perhaps because I didn’t know how to look at people then, didn’t understand love's worth or intimacy's beauty. These things I wouldn’t know until I had tried committing and settling a few times, with each attempt comparing to the happiness goal, noting how things were different than I expected and readjusting the relationship course a little bit, or a lot, or even starting over.

Yet now I realize I am no longer comparatively happy but happy in uncharted and unexpected waters; I no longer expect there's more relationship happiness different than the kind I already have, perhaps broader or deeper but not different. I have all I was ever looking for, all I ever expected (and perhaps why other women no longer tempt me), and not only is my relationship different than I expected as a child or any other time in life, but things now, finally, are better than I thought they ever could be, better than I ever expected, as a child or at any other time in my life.