Gettin My Happy On

I was wondering if I'm happy.  Because we all "just want to be happy" right?  No major life goals or anything.  Just happiness.  Which I think is about the same thing as Miss World hoping for world peace.  Nobody ever wakes up one day and spends the whole day in blissful recognition that their world is now a sound place, they have realised personal satisfaction and are indeed, happy.  Okay, the only exception to this is that ridiculously exciting first three weeks of lust wherein you may wake up feeling happy, spend all day feeling happy and go to bed feeling happy, but somewhere in the back of your head you know it's getting to be slim pickings in the underpants drawer and your mobile phone is about to be disconnected due to late payments.

But whilst I'm not running around claiming to have attained happiness in life (it still does seem to be a future focused goal), I don't think I'm unhappy most of the time.  Don't get me wrong.  There are white hot flashes of epic unhappiness that regularly darken my doorway and send a somewhat intimidating scowl to my brow.  But on the whole, as an average, with a bit of give and take, generally speaking, I'm mostly okay.

But my joy comes in small packages.  Nothing earth shattering happens frequently in my life and if I sat around waiting for great moments, I'd be disappointed.  But there is happiness to be found in the small stuff.  It might be fleeting.  It might be brief laughter.  A shared smile.  But it exists in urban settings.  And I am going to highlight but a few I have witnessed.  Please feel free to disagree if you don't find the following in the slightest way to be smile provoking:

The moment when you cross paths with a complete stranger.  Literally.  As in your paths are crossed.  You go to step around and they step the same way.  This mental dance can literally go on for 3-4 sidesteps.

You change handbags to suit your outfit and find a cheeky $20 from a night out long ago.

You score the most unbelievably good car space on a Saturday morning when you've got to be in and out in five minutes.

Someone in the toilet cubicle next to you asks meekly, "Do you have any toilet paper in there?"  And you do.

Someone famous responds to one of your tweets.  Oh shut up you miserable old farts.  Twitter is not that bad.

You see a small toddler start gathering speed on a small downhill slope.  You know they are going to faceplant and it shouldn't be funny when they eventually fall but it is.

Maggie Beer "Burnt Fig and Honeycomb" Ice Cream.

A really good Mojito.

Stripy clothing.

Reading any Dr Seuss book to a gathered group of children.  Read it with a performance quality.

Dressing up as someone else.  Being a different character.

Seeing the look on a friend's face when they open the gift you found for them which happens to be perfect and special and so hard to find.

The moment someone first starts laughing through their really sad tears.

Watching Alan Alda in any episode of MASH.  Because it is literally the best show of all time (Mad Men is its only competitor) and Hawkeye Pearce is the most charismatic man that never existed.

Clean sheets under a naked body.

Tulips. Peonies.

Nick Earls and every book he has ever written.

Tea cups.

Wristwatches on the toned arms of men who have their shirt sleeves rolled up.

Old ladies on dancefloors.  Old men on dancefloors.

Seeing old people walk along holding hands.

Aretha Franklin.  

It's everywhere and it's happening all the time.  It's happening so many times a day that we forget to remember that it's all good shit.  I know that I sound like I'm preaching but this post is for myself as much as it is for you my friends.  I need to remind myself that things are good even when it's mostly crap.  I'm not climbing Everest, I'm not in love, I have a mortgage and a job that really feels like hard work at the moment, I don't go to Ivy bar and swim in their pool, I haven't won any money and I should probably think more about a superannuation plan.  But my boring little world is full of great stuff.  Things.  Everywhere. And yours is too.