I love walking that hallway.

It’s filled with flirtation, laughter, orneriness, accomplishment, community, and family. There isn’t an emotional mask of any kind. It’s raw, naked, fun; proudly portraying deep laugh lines, wide open smiles, and hands grasping hands in a hedonic banter.

It’s purely and simply…bliss.

In Sanskrit, this is called ananda. This word, this feeling, goes beyond a personal happiness. It’s something that we share in common, as a community, without boundaries of personality or differences between us. I see this on a daily basis in my young children, and it’s evident in each of those pictures down that hallway.

So what happens to those of us in the middle of life? I came across this blog, which cited findings that we hit a hedonic low at midlife. I had to soul search a little bit because, well, that stung a little, since I’m in the female’s average age referred to in the article. But I think instead, I’m more in this spot, quite eloquently summed up by a Deepak Chopra tweet, of all things:

“True self-esteem is not the same thing as improving your self-image. Self-image results from what other people think of you.”

And that makes me feel blissful. Ananda. I’m moving from the outer to the inner, to discover our connection to each other. One foot in front of the next, because I want to hang in some hallway, in some obscure recreation center, laughing my butt off because I have on a silly hat and I’m riding a red bike.

Bring on the laugh lines. Really, really deep ones.

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