In the Happily Ever After

I’ve been stewing on this—the end of those books. Where they teach us how to get what they told us to want everything we ever wanted. But then they stop short, before teaching us how to enjoy it, live in it, keep it. The stories end just at the beginning. And there’s so much to learn and relish in the part unwritten.

Maybe it’s because those stories thrive on the idea that there’s always something to overcome, that we’re always climbing. Or maybe it’s more sinister—a way to keep us cycling through old patterns, consuming more, working harder, falling in line. Maybe it’s just another tool of the system to keep us striving, not thriving.

But what I’m facing now is this: the blank page of the happily ever after. The story after the big journey—the one where I transformed, learned, and got everything I ever wanted (ironically by giving away all the things those fairy tales taught me to chase). And I can’t find any stories about what it feels like to just be in the happy, after.

A few months ago, after I had turned my life upside down, I started curating a list of things I wanted to be abundant in. It started with time, but by the end of my brainstorming sessions, I realized that self-worth needed to be at the top of that list. Then I spent several months making that list true.

Eventually, I ran out of things to complain about in my morning pages. Everything was…awesome. And I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

My choices felt familiar but absurd:

• Slide into fear that everything I had could be ripped from me.
• Decide it wasn’t enough and slip back into a lack mindset.
• Self-sabotage the joy I had worked so hard for.
• Or actually decide to live like this.

Those first three choices were roads I knew well. I’d walked them for years, and I didn’t like where they led. I didn’t need to go back there. Sure, there’s always more—but doesn’t more come with more problems? What if my purpose, instead of overcoming, was now to just be.

So, I started shifting my journaling. Instead of listing desires, I began affirming abundance. I’d write down my list—love, self-worth, time, ease, health, creativity, financial security—and then I’d write how those things were already true, right now, that day.

What if the happily ever after is as simple as that? Not a quest for more, but a quiet practice of gratitude. What if it’s supposed to be boring?

I get why we don’t see these stories in movies or books—they’d never sell. They’re not flashy or dramatic. My life is gloriously boring. Maybe my algorithms need revamping, but I’m so grateful to be in the boring part of life.

Maybe it won’t always be this way. Maybe this is just a readjusting before something bigger comes along. Or maybe this is the bigger thing. Maybe happily ever after is drinking tea on the porch in the morning sun. It’s writing in the quiet. It’s calmly, gratefully, moving through the motions of self-publishing a book. It’s lifting weights in my basement so I don’t break a hip in twenty years. It’s spending a weekend binging Gossip Girl because my daughter wants to hear my opinions about the characters.

Maybe I’ll want new things eventually. Maybe happily ever after is just another phase of the journey. But right now, I’m here.

Can anyone else relate to this? I want to hear people’s happily ever afters. I want to know the tiniest things that bring them joy. I want to see the boringness of gratitude. I want to bask in the truth of expansion through joy and the forgetting of struggle.

Maybe I’m naive, or maybe I’ve stumbled on something true. But what if we stopped striving and started living? What if this is the story we’ve been missing?

I’m here now. What about you?