Success and Redneck Rosé

Though the house has been recently renovated, from the front entrance landing I could pinpoint at least five distinct places that I had cried, thrown up, or fought with a part-time lover in the height of my teenage years.

Armed with two bottles of the most mid-range wine I could scavenge the shelves for, I stepped over the threshold and straight into a trip down memory lane.

After carefully dissecting stories of overdone New Years Eve attempts and blacked out trips to BVJ, fifteen of us settled around the dining room table and into conversations about wedding registries, puppy daycare, and insurance claims.

I held my breath and silently prayed as we went around the table, hoping against all hope that the conversation wouldn’t land in my lap because I couldn’t think of a single thing we had in common but the past – There were only so many ways I could spin the fact that my oil change light was always on, I had $0.87 in my bank account until pay day, and (whether or not it’s biologically possible) I may have been re-growing my virginity.

Get at me, life.

Truth is, I often battle with the concept of success and in that moment, surrounded by my thriving peers, I wasn’t successful in the least.

I forced myself to run a small engine check on the values and metrics I use to measure success and realized that like most things in my life, they change frequently and without prior notice.

Travel remains a metric of success in my life only for so long as I can tolerate boarding lounges, career progression until the feeling of being trapped sets in, and relationships only insofar as I can turn a blind eye to error riddled text messages and half-assed hangouts.

As I did a mental scan of all the moments in my life that I had truly felt successful, I stumbled upon the knowledge that the only common factor in my systematic abandonment of the measures I use to qualify this aforementioned success is the feeling of unhappiness.

It was then, with red wine and white, mixed as if it were redneck rose, that I realized happiness itself is my measure of success.

I am successful as long as I'm happy. Simple as that.

I am successful, not because of my degrees; the pin pricks in maps littering the walls of my home, or the emblem on my lift gate. I can’t speak to gift registries or insurance claims, nor should I ever be left in charge of a living entity (furry or otherwise).

I’m single. I’m broke. I’m land locked and busy busting my ass at two jobs that aren’t even remotely related to what I’m passionate about. But in that moment, surrounded by fourteen people who inspire, challenge, and sometimes freak me right the fuck out, I realized that I am successful because I’m happy.

Rings and contracts aside, I found the one thing we all had in common.