Feeling A Sense Of 'Happiness Guilt' On My Way To LA

For the last few weeks my boyfriend has been working in the States. His work plans unexpectedly changed whilst he was out there and he was given five days off in LA. Last Sunday he surprised me with tickets to go join him for a few days. This was something I NEVER expected and I was so bloody happy and excited. I suddenly felt like THE luckiest human being on the planet. A surprise trip to LA. Pinch me.

An eleven hour flight (when you can't sleep) is a dangerous length of time to be inside your own head. My stomach was doing somersaults with excitement but I had this huge wave of guilt hanging over me. My thought process went a little like this...

- Why do I deserve such an incredible surprise?

- I could probably work a little harder

- I could probably do more for other people

- Am I sometimes selfish?

- Some people are fighting for their life and I'm casually on the plane to LA

- Some people went on holiday to Tunisia and never came home again. Life can be so unfair.

I suddenly felt plagued by a severe sense of what I call 'Happiness Guilt'. I felt so guilty that such an incredible experience was happening to me. There's so many people in my life that I would have absolutely loved to have seen them surprised in this way but the fact it was 'my' surprise made me feel uncomfortable, other people deserve it more than me, surely? I dream of the day that I can surprise people I care about and spoil them rotten but accepting the fact someone else thinks the world of you and wants to spoil you can often be a difficult situation to accept.

I knew I had to snap myself out of feeling this way. I couldn't get the tragic victims from the Tunisia attacks out of my head, the families of the victims from the missing Malaysian airline, the families that have just lost a loved one to cancer etc. I couldn't stop thinking about the people robbed of their lives and here I was jetting off to LA happy as larry...

I guess what I'm trying to say is if something happens to you which gives you a 'pinch me' moment and fills you with huge amounts of joy and happiness then please please embrace it. Live for the moment and lap up every second of it for you don't know what is around the corner, (soz to get all morbid). Don't let being happy make you feel guilty. Enjoy the fact that in these incredible moments you're the kind of person that can appreciate how lucky you are, be humble, stay grounded and realise how bloody fortunate you are. Forget bloody surprise trips to LA, I'm fortunate to have my health, a roof over my head and incredible people in my life. Anything more than that is a huge luxury I feel very blessed to have.

I genuinely had the best four days of my life in LA with my boyfriend. It all went far too quickly but we didn't waste a moment and I was never without a smile on my face. The best feeling to take from my trip is the fact I feel safe in the knowledge that I KNOW how lucky I was to have that experience and the best thing to come out of it? I feel inspired again to be the best version of myself. I want to get back on the blogging game (it's been two weeks since I last posted), I want to work my absolute butt off, I want to appreciate my health, have empathy for others and embrace the happy times in my life because none of us know when a terribly sad time is around the corner. The tragedies we hear in the news shouldn't depress us or make us feel guilty for being happy. Use these situations to gain perspective, savour our happy moments and stay humble because unfortunately life can be so so short.

Thank you for reading my deep ramblings. Really needed to get this one off my chest.

What a lovely feeling it is to be blogging again. Thank you so much for reading.

Love Carelle...x