It has been almost a year now since I was last in the professional world. Time flies, I suppose; it really doesn’t feel as if it has been almost a year.  And, the things my dreams dish out on a nightly basis do nothing to help the situation. It’s really not surprising. When I was a professional, every now and then, I’d have some dream about setting to work on a school assignment/exam I’d handed in some six to seven years earlier.

 Now, after nearly twelve months  back in university, I’m having  dreams about hustling through  breakfast to get to work.  I’m  also having dreams in which I  mutter things under my breath at  some public official who’s refusing  to answer his or her phone.

 There are even dreams in which  I’m fuming over an article of  mine that has been altered for  the worse.  Sometimes, I wake  up from these dreams and for  long moments cannot decide whether or not I’m happy to be away from the world of work.

I’ve (re)learnt a thing or two about happiness while back in school.  One very important thing I’ve (re)learnt is that obsessing over happiness can bring much unhappiness.  It’s one thing to challenge myself the way I do- I do want to lead a generally happy life having the things I do and say being of consequence.  It’s quite another thing to expect to be happy all of the time.

Whether or not I like admitting it, I do expect that- to be happy all the time.  And even now while I admit it, I can’t bring myself to be ashamed for wanting that. If genies were real and one appeared right now to grant me just one wish, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d wish to be happy always. But, of course, that sort of wish would probably only land me in hot water. You always have to be careful what you wish for. It’s highly unlikely that there won’t be some twist or turn at some point which will lead me to wishing that I'd never wished for that particular thing.

I did make one wish while I was packing up my life to attend school in another country. I wished for quiet and peace; I wished that I could dedicate, without any major distractions, the next few years of my life to working on a project I was passionate about.

That would mean a drama-free working environment. That would mean no issues popping up within any of my various relationships- familial, platonic and otherwise. That would mean just total peace and quiet.

I thought about this wish today and had to laugh at myself.  To be sure, the only way to know the quality of the heat is to be, as they say, “in the kitchen”. But I’ve realized that with the passage of time and with such time spent out of the “kitchen”, you get to put certain things into perspective.

For my part, with everything that I want to achieve in life, it doesn’t speak well for me that a few years of disquiet leaves me pining for immediate quiet.  I’ve had some rough times.  But I’m sure others have had rougher. Besides, something tells me I have even rougher times ahead. Maybe, I’d get a lot more ground covered in my pursuit of happiness if I enjoyed the pursuit a bit more and stopped being so very focus on the end.

There are still many, many miles before I get to peace….

Journal of a Working Girl is now updated monthly.