Happiness

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
~ John Lennon

Moths and flames

“Look at that weird guy, him and his long hair. Pacing up and down like that for ages, I’ve been watching him. I pity whoever he’s here for, he’s obviously entirely deranged.”

Darklis didn’t recall precisely what he looked like, having met while under significant influence all those weeks before. But her immediate recognition of the ‘nutter’ was because, in fact, she had invited him to attend.

Something in his silent stalking movements did indeed scare her, a fear tinge seeded deep within her belly. Screaming – OBSESSIVE! A characteristic she had learned to turn and bolt from with Olympic speed and precision.

Rather unfortunate then, that intrigue snagged her in the same moment and by equal measure. Of this dark moody looking man, waiting outside the theatre all this time in the puddled cold to catch her as she left.

By loudly declaring his judgement, Darklis’ opinion of her companion diminished right there and then, never to be regained. She understood all the reasons why he’d said it... but he was shallow and irrelevant.

She also knew inside herself, driving away from the scene as quickly as she dared, that from that exact instant in time she was well and truly fucked. And that it wasn’t necessarily going to be good.

Trouble was not, and still isn't, what Darklis wanted. For her sake, or his. If you were one of these two, at least slightly, off-centred people - tell me what would you have done next?

Joy (it's my middle name)

I dated a guy once, many many moons ago for a very short time, who told me I was delusional for looking on the bright side of life most of the time. It wasn’t reality he said.

We’d just broken up due to the extreme limitations of his dating repertoire; namely eating (but never ever potatoes, which in itself is sacrilege) and fucking. That, and the way his dreadlocks used to grease filth down through all my bed linen grossed me the fuck out.

In his favour, he did have the gruntiest of motorbikes, which thrilled me to pieces riding high-speed pillion over the Rimutakas. But there was just never enough of that and I was craving carbohydrate.

I take joy wherever I can find it, and not just because it’s my middle name. But because bitching and whinging like a victim about the things not so great in life is easy. It’s the weak man's (or woman’s) cheap way out. To amuse myself on a daily basis and make the choice to be happy is SO, SO, SO much more fun.

My crowning eureka moment, when I was catapulted forward to meet my whole new life, found me driving round a Petone roundabout - just another ordinary, everyday moment in a 30-year black dog battling lifespan. I was about to bark off down that same road, when suddenly, for no discernable reason, I thought to myself: I wonder what would happen if I purposely chose a different path?

So I concentrated on something else, some happy thought or other, rather than following a life time of embedded habit. And I kept consciously practising, until that was the behaviour defaultly ingrained. I’ve hardly looked in my rear vision mirror since (which might also account for the shocking state of my present truck).

Now, on Saturday mornings during my most-weeks ritual doing what I like to do, I often find myself thinking about joy. While I indulge in delectable finger to spine thrilling touching at Page and Blackmore's, or as the sunshine warms my back on my way to market and my favourite stall.

I don’t know his name. We don’t speak much, except for my good morning cheery hello and his out loud calculations toting up my fruit and vege. But every time without fail, he looks at me and I look at him, and he splits into the most humongous Thai-boy grin you’ve ever seen. His face completely taken over and mine responding helplessly in kind. Yes, I think of joy then too.

It makes me chuckle for the rest of the day, that for a few seconds on a Saturday morning, there are these two great grinning fucken idiots in a crowded carpark sharing a passing moment, with nothing else needing to be said or done.

My deluded reality? Yep, I’ll take that. I recommend it to everyone.