I feel like I have spent a lot of my life searching for “happiness” and never really understanding what that is supposed to look like. I don’t think I am the only one. So here we are, swarms of people wandering about the earth, searching for something that feels unattainable for any amount of time.

Honestly, I chose this book based on the title very early in the morning before I had to go to work. I like to fill my commute with meaningful information and “The Good Life” sounded like just the thing before a twelve hour shift. This book covers the oldest running longitudinal study that was started by Harvard in the 1930s. It is multi-generational study that follows a wide range of families, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds.

What this book boiled down to was that those that felt they had a “good life” or had maintained “happiness” all spoke about one thing, relationships. We know relationships are important, but have we stopped to really think about them? Sometimes it feels like we can go through life assuming relationships will always be there, some will be successful, some not, but always there. This book started a conversation inside my mind about how I have tended or disregarded relationships in my life. I started to think about all of those that I took for granted until it was too late. This is a painful line of internal questioning.

Part of the problem is that I don’t ever remember anyone telling me how hard it was to maintain not only a romantic relationship, but also friendships and bonds with family. There is a distinct amount of effort required to grow a relationship. We have to bring interest to the table as well as communication, compromise, boundaries, patience, encouragement, love, laughter, honesty, and forgiveness. How many of us can handle those types of things within our own bodies, let alone provide them for another human being?

This summer I have a new book of poetry coming out from Roadside Press called “We Don’t Get to Write the Ending.” I had been writing it since 2006 and it is filled with failed relationships. Some of them, I realize now were my fault, some from the other party, and maybe a little bit of both. When putting it together, I hadn’t listened to “The Good Life” yet and so the collection felt differently to me than it does now. What I understand about myself was that in all of these relationships I was looking for comfort, trust, honesty, love, and laughter. What I got was a broken heart over and over. Some of them even traumatized me for many years after.

I didn’t understand then that I was trying to write the happy ever after ending to each of those relationships without having put in all the time and effort needed to grow them in that direction. I went into the relationships with expectations that maybe the other half wasn’t able to fulfill in part because it wasn’t who they were, or because I also wasn’t a great communicator when it came to feelings. I lacked trust in people. I was crazy to think that I could have a successful relationship with that seed in my heart.

“We Don’t Get to Write the Ending” follows these relationships as they are starting to fail, as I was beginning to see over my own rose colored glasses at reality, which lead to the ending of each one. After the fact, it was interesting to see how each love interest changed my style of poetry, how they influenced my language and structure, how they made me see myself. That is a gift in itself.

I am in a time of life where I now understand that relationships are everything to me. I am embracing love, friendships with women, and attempting to be integrated into my community. I spend the time to keep the friends I already have. I put in the work to create new friendships even when it seems hard to do at age 50. I feel like I’m making up for lost time. “The Good Life” was a great book to listen to and reinforce that I am headed in the right direction. When I get to the end of my life, whenever that is, I want to know that I was loved and loved other people deeply, that my friendships with them enriched both of our lives. Happiness was never about the things you surround yourself with, but the people that hold your hand as you walk through it.

Thanks for reading. Be Kind to Each Other. Read. Write. Make art. Make connections. You get this one chance.

Aleathia