Ha

I'm happy that we all made it through another day
When I pick up the phone I still remember what to say - Danny Elfman "Happy"
A few mornings back, my wife came into the room and announced that she was happy to be home. And it struck me: I don't tend to talk very often in terms of happy. Not that I am not fully capable of being happy, but it is not the part of my life and its story that I tend to share.
I am not a glass half-empty kind of guy. Nor am I a half-full fellow. I am the kind of person who invariably wishes for a different sized glass. I am looking for a way to discuss the myriad of mood fluctuations in some clever, little used way. Historically, this tends to leave me in a ditch known as sarcasm. This can tend to put me at odds with those who reply to the question, "How are you?" with the grinning response, "Blessed."
To get this out of the way early on, I carry no animosity to these people and their outlook. On the contrary: I find their wide-eyed optimism fascinating, since to my mind I am always looking for the reason to feel cursed. Which is a little odd given the relatively torment-free existence I have led. Have I experienced loss and grief? Yes, but no more than a cross-section of my peers. By contrast, I have had buckets of joy and good fortune. A childhood full of stories and trials that made me who I am today. Teenage years that had me driving my own car and eventually getting into the college that was more or less my choice. Friends that kept me company along that path, most of whom I continue to interact with after all these years have pushed me to the brink of joining the AARP. If I were simply to pluck those moments when I was singing along with Bruce Springsteen while he and the E Street Band played their hearts out in front of me, this would be a happy man.
But I am prone to lifting up those rocks that show up on my path, and peering beneath. I want to see the bugs and worms that squirm just below the surface. I do this on a regular basis rather than turn my gaze to the sun in the sky. The sun that beats down upon me and will eventually give me skin cancer.
Not because I am truly miserable, but because I have found that this is the perspective that elicits a laugh. Which is terribly ironic, since mining pain is the thing that I choose to elicit joy in others.
And perhaps this is the art that I pursue. Something akin to Picasso's assertion that "to create we must destroy." Which may explain how all those ladies ended up with noses on their foreheads, but also why I am no more content that when I make someone chuckle through their tears. Laugh til I cried. Cried til I laughed. It's all a continuum. I'm the guy over on this end, kicking at the edge of the envelope.