The Mystery of Happiness

"How lucky we are, when we're spared what we think we want!"  - Lionel Shriver

I read that quote in Shriver's brilliant novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (the film is great as well, but the book is filled with gems), and it resonated with me so much that I wrote it down everywhere-- on notebooks, bathroom stalls, other people's phones, soles of shoes, and all social media platforms.

It put into words a powerful realization I had made about myself and my life but didn't know how to describe. I seem to have less and less certainty of what makes me happy, and I think that's a very good thing to come to terms with.

There were many things I thought would make me happy. 

I thought being thin would make me happy. I thought having small, perkier breasts would make me happy. I thought expensive bags would make me happy. I thought being a movie star would make me happy. I thought having a tall handsome boyfriend who would one day become my husband would make me happy. I thought being financially independent would make me happy. I thought having clear skin would make me happy. I thought not having stretch-marks or cellulite would make me happy. I thought being blonde would make me happy.

As I look at that list now, I see all those things I thought would make me happy were just that: ideas. Moreover, they were not tied to any real understanding of happiness, but rather to a deep need to belong. I would look around, see what made other people fit in and be cool, and label it as a recipe for happiness. If I have that, if I look like that, if I do that, if I own that, then I'll be happy.

I did get a lot of the things on that list. Others I gave up on. Either way, happiness didn't come automatically with the package. Yes, there was a great deal of satisfaction in losing weight and in being seen next to tall handsome boyfriends, but I wasn't happy. I placed my happiness outside of myself, not only in these external "achievements," but in other people seeing me as good enough to have them.

It's comfortable to do what is believed to make us happy. Everyone is relieved when I'm thin, clear-skinned, financially independent, and next to a tall handsome man. Those are the things I'm supposed to want and, for long enough, they were exactly what I wanted. But it takes effort to maintain the illusion. One day you eat a cupcake, you get a pimple, you lose your job, your boyfriend bores you, and you wonder if it's possible that happiness lives in things that are inherently transitory.

In realizing this, I have felt both confused and clear. I look at myself, my life, my goals, and my dreams with new eyes. Is this really what I want, or is it what I think I want? Do I ever know what I want, or do I only ever get to know for certain what I don't want after I've had it? 
 
I always had clear pictures of my ideal future: married (to a tall handsome man), with children of my own, and traveling the world starring in movies and acting in plays. Now, those pictures are blurry. I don't want these things "in general" anymore. I still want them, but only if it feels like it's right for me when it happens, and not because they fit into this pretty picture that makes me, and everyone else, more comfortable.

Maybe I'll fall in love with a short chubby hairy man. Maybe I'll be a teacher and act in plays for free for a long time and it'll be okay. Maybe I'll live in a suburb. Maybe I'll have straw handbags. Maybe my boobs will sag and it won't be so bad. Maybe I'll gain five pounds instead of losing the always-goal ten. Maybe I'll stop getting pimples and start getting wrinkles and I'll miss my pimples. Maybe I'll adopt four Vietnamese girls and fall desperately in love with them. Maybe I'll be a single mom. Maybe I'll have three marriages. Maybe I'll make a big movie and miss acting in little plays. Maybe I'll shave my head. Maybe I'll be single for years. Who knows.

Whatever it is that I don't know I want, I am now open to it more than ever before, and I am so excited to live.

Image from here.

Have you been spared what you thought you wanted and now see how lucky you were?

The Ideal Me

I see a beach with very white sand and a very clear, blue ocean. Someone labeled this paradise, and I believed it. So that is where I live. The Ideal Me, that is.

And you know what's funny? The Ideal Me doesn't have the perfect yogi body, flat abs, perfect shiny hair, flawless skin. Actually, she has wild beach hair and a soft tummy. She wears a long skirt and a braless shirt. Her nails aren't done, her legs aren't waxed. She is neither old nor young, and she is most certainly not a young-looking older woman. She is timeless. She has no make-up on, not even the liquid Benetint blush I swear I can't live without. She is barefoot and her feet are not graceful and elegant. Her breasts are not unnaturally perky and her butt is not hard as stone. She is kind of messy, and she seems almost careless.

But this Ideal Me that is so imperfect on the surface is so unquestionably, contagiously, boundlessly happy. She is at peace. She glows from within. She is always smiling. She rolls around in the sand, she splashes about in the ocean, she floats with the calm waters, she skips along the shore, she dances in the rain, and she laughs and laughs and laughs. There is nothing in the way. There is nothing she is waiting for.

She is also alone. This paradise does not include a love interest, family, or friends. It is just her. But she is not lonely. She is not afraid of dying alone, of getting old alone, of not having children, of not being loved enough in this lifetime. She doesn't see a time-line for her life, filled with marks of when things should happen by. She doesn't have a map or a compass, she lives freely and she has an unshakable certainty that everything is just as it should be.

This image comes to me effortlessly, I have no control over it. Sometimes it visits me when I feel very anxious, sometimes it shows up when I am very happy. Sometimes I open the refrigerator without knowing what I want, hoping that in that cold white box full of food there will be an answer to my mind's noisy questions, and all I hear suddenly is her laughter. She lives inside me, but she is present outside of me as well. She's just there; a stranger I know so well, a part of me I had no part in making.

It surprises me that The Ideal Me is not some glamorous Hollywood actress with a perfect body and a hot husband who's madly in love with her. She resembles more of a tree-hugging unshowered hippie, actually. She can't even be described as confident and self-assured. She just is. She just knows the things I hope to know, with all of her being.

She exists because I need her to exist. She has no message for me. She is just a presence, a part of myself that is able to live only under the umbrella of the "Ideal Me". She is a guardian, keeping my essence safe from the masks and armor reality has me wearing. And she leaves me with a stillness that roots me. She allows me to be.

Somehow, I do not find myself seeking to become her. I have not made her a goal. I keep her in this "ideal" place because somehow I know I can not be her. I have to be this version of myself, who worries, clings, dreams, and always wants more. She exists in some parallel universe, and the best I can do is honor that. I pay attention to the image, I let it affect me, and I welcome it, but I can not strive to make it a reality. She lives on that paradise beach, and I live in New York City. She doesn't need a career, and I have to act. She isn't waiting for love, and I am. She is happy with herself, and I am still working on my relationship with myself every day.

That is The Ideal Me. A vital part of me, capable of breathing life into my deadest pores, but not me. That is all she can be: an image. The human being part, that whole living life thing, that can only be done by this me.

Perhaps she looks at me from her world and envies that I get to have all my humanity, all my flaws, all my short-comings, all my insecurities, all my wishes. Maybe she thinks I have it easy, I get to fuck up as much as I want, because this is all a learning experience for me. Hah. That makes me laugh.

That's just how it is this time around: she gets the Ideal world and I get the Real world, but we get to see each other from afar and keep things in perspective. We keep each other safe. And that's a nice comfort, I'd say.