Happiness

Happiness is just an occasional episode in the general drama of pain. I have been using Thomas Hardy's brilliance since college. I throw the line at people when they ask me if I am happy. It's easier than explaining that I don't really understand happiness. For me happiness is me smiling without effort. After living with clinical depression, any time that I don't feel like just spontaneously combusting is happiness for me.

My therapist told me he chooses to be happy. I smiled. I also wondered if we could choose to be a koala bear, but that's a different headspace for another time. Back to the ever mind boggling concept of happiness and the pursuit of it. I never understood why we would have to pursue happiness. Shouldn't it be easy? Shouldn't it just be there? Shouldn't it just accompany you everywhere sticking to you like that lone long hair stuck between your butt cheeks?

"Are you happy? ", the man child asks me in the morning. I hesitate. He changes the question," Are you in a better place than yesterday? ". I smile." Yes. Better than yesterday". I go on to tell him in the same breath that I am worried about my stupid money not being credited in my stupid bank account and that the stupid bank people are not responding. Then I tell him I am still hurt by what a friend said which is why I was unhappy in the first place yesterday. I stop. I look at him and smile. "Other than that, yeah, I am doing way better than yesterday."

That's it. My happiness is transient like my days and hours and minutes. Ask me on any particular day if I am happy and I will have to go through the motions of thinking if I am feeling like I should just stop existing. If I am not, then yes sir, I am very happy. Today I woke up without wanting to sleep for the rest of the day. Yes siree I am happy. Today I smiled looking at the drizzly calm greenery of the city. Yes ma'am I'm happy. Today I did not sigh and think of all the ways I am not going to make it in life. Yes sweetheart I am happy.

So you see I find happiness in not feeling like shit. It is in fact just like the occasional hair I find stuck between my butt cheeks after a bath.

Memories

It is worrisome to see that one tiny photograph can impact nerves to no end. I mean from one end to another and then back. It is complete idiocy that runs through your neurons. I think our brains like the fact that it can wreak such utter havoc through sight. And smell. And touch.

There is a ticking time bomb in each of us. Some of us can suppress it better than others. Those of us who know no better fall into the trap and push the red button time and again without learning from mistakes. It is a little bit like forgetting to switch on the mosquito repellant. You know what pain is when the errant mosquito relishes the taste of your blood. The next time I will be wise we think. Then the welts fade, the pain subsides and one fine day you are cocky and forgetful again.

Memories are like the bullies who wouldn't stop throwing chalk at you. Some just glance by you. Some you dust off. Then there are some that hit you in the eye and you are in blinding pain for quite a while.

What about good memories you say? Well, I think all memories hurt a little. It is made up entirely of the past. You will always yearn for a double check, a look back, a time machine or oblivion. Memories are just rude shocks you did not expect from the expensive iron.

I may be cynical or just depressed, but when I wake up tomorrow I will still feel the same. What we feel is the absolute truth for us at every moment. My truth just makes more sense to me than yours.