Watching Wil get his haircut today had me nearly in tears. The clippers buzzing, Wil chatting, smiling, relaxed.

Years ago this sight was a distant dream. The haircut triggered my emotions, but deep down it’s about progress.

It’s about feeling so desperate and on-guard with almost anything you do, because so much is a struggle for your child to acclimate to.

It’s about walking out the door, but never just walking out the door.

It’s about always thinking ahead, strategizing what might trigger your child. And even as much as you think ahead random things happen. A dog barks and dang, its the one time you forgot the noise-cancelling headphones, and your child takes off and you sprint after them before they hit the parking lot on the way to the car. Leaving the house is never just leaving the house. You always have to leave with as much of a crystal ball as you can muster.

And then fast-forward to watching your grown child calmly sit, and you actually left the house without much of a plan.

I think, a lot of times, happiness is not some elusive place, but a place of working hard for something. Of just climbing that ladder every day, and you are so used to climbing it, that you don’t even realize you’ve hit this certain level until one ordinary day you are blissfully suspended in air.

And once your brain’s thought process catches up to that elevated feeling and brings you back to earth, you realize happiness is about progress.