What a Start

My new adventure this week will be reading Anna Karenina.
It begins:
"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

I'm only on page 12, so I don't have much to say about the read yet. But, I do believe this statement. Happy families, or groups, or couples, or just people resemble one another. Not that they have the same personalities; quiet reserved happy families can be just as happy as the quirky loud happy families.

Some people think that the house with too many kids and a messy kitchen could not be happy that way. Some people feel bad for the single child with very strict parents and one of those living rooms that has couches you aren't supposed to sit on. To me, it isn't about that. In the end it is about whether or not the people who have to live in that house everyday want to be there. That is how happy families resemble one another. You walk into their house and can just feel that the people who live there WANT to be there.

As for the second half of the statement, I think there are just more ways to be unhappy than to be happy and that leads to families being unhappy in so many different ways. I just mean more diverse ways, not more opportunities. It is easy to stumble on a way to be unhappy because of this. In all directions you turn, there is a way to be unhappy. The anxiety in an unhappy family comes from the constant turning and searching for a way out. But, this also means that when you do figure out how to be one of those happy families or people, it will be easier to keep in sight because all you have to do then is stop turning.