“When were you the last happiest?”Her question loomed like my persistent mother. I stared blankly out the window.”Your hesitation makes me question your ability to answer my question.”I was just about to correct her redundancies when it dawned on me…I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember the last time I was happiest.
Couldn’t have been when I learned I had gotten a “real job”, the one I currently loathe day-in and day-out, could it?
Perhaps it was the day I decided to take a “sabbatical” to my sister’s in Florida, when I finally weaseled my way out of quitting The Restaurant without actually uttering those words…
The last time I remember smiling with my entire being was in pictures from London, although I was then pinning after a boyfriend who traveled to Paris for me, then proceeded to dump me on my birthday after I spent half a day flying and driving to see him, but I bitterly digress…
The last time I was happy. Hmm.
The clock ticked. Tocked.
She looked at me quizzically.
“I was happiest when I didn’t know any better.”
It was her who stared at me this time, blankly. Tick. Tock
Why was everyone suddenly interested in my happiness quota? When people are happiest, they don’t know they’re the happiest they’ll ever be, because if they knew that, they wouldn’t be at their happiest for the mere fact that they were acknowledging the fact that they were happy.
It’s such an over generalization, happiness. As if being your happiest means you have reached nirvana. If I was at my happiest, I probably wouldn’t be writing. Artists wouldn’t write songs, method actors would have no idea where to pull from. People wouldn’t know what happiness was without the struggle to achieve it. And really…is anyone really, truly, ever at their happiest? Does anyone ever fulfill their happiness quota?
Cause time is running out for all us naysayers.
Tick. Tock.
