Friday, February 25, 2005
On being happy
The sun hasn't come out in days. The snow's finally stopped - now it just keeps drizzling incessantly, the way I remember it doing for the last eight years.
Everything's packed up and shipped; I just need to pack my suitcases and get ready to go. (all my bags are packed / i'm ready to go)
Yet there's a gnawing sense of... incompleteness. There's something left to do, and I know what it is... but I don't know whether to or not. Or maybe I'm just too afraid to try. Maybe they are all weak excuses.
Maybe they aren't.
I didn't come here for this.
Everything I came to do, I have done.
Forty Eight hours to go.
*****
There are some people we're so used to seeing happy that it distresses us when they're not. It's almost a conditioned response - happy person not happy. Must be very bad. Bad thing.
It's especially apparently when the person is in the public spotlight; facades are essentially masks, and when the cracks appear the sheep become unsettled. They want their primetime predictability. They want their goddesses to remain flawless.
Sometimes I wonder though, when the sheep begin to instinctively bleat their reflex-arc sympathetic get-well-soons whether their well wishes are for the recipient, or for themselves.
Do they really care how much that person is hurting?
Can you really care about someone if you've never known them in real life? Sometimes it's hard enough caring even when you have...
Or do they just want to salve their own unease with a smear-on get-happy-soon! comment. The quick-fix wonderdrug for heartbreak. (which in truth, for some of us, the cynics - isn't enough either. But we smile and try to accept graciously and shrug it all off, while our hearts continue to fracture. Like white lies, there are white hypocrisies too. We do it to make the rest of the world happy again...)
I don't want to see anyone hurt. Especially not people I see as friends - or new acquaintences / almost-friends (it takes time with me; I don't trust that easily anymore)
But I won't bug anyone to be happy soon, soon, too soon either. Time will be as time is. Sometimes that's all it takes; time. Till someone laughs again. For real.
Yet sometimes time is not enough.
I'll just say this.
Sometimes beauty isn't about wearing the perfect mask, but about the person inside, behind the mask, and how she weathers the storm.
And if she lets you in; you see the truth. And happiness / sadness - doesn't change how remarkable she is.
*****
Two separate moments in time.
Two pairs of eyes.
Two cars.
One thing in common. A deep sorrow.
Two different reasons.
Both souls... heart-rendingly beautiful.
Everything's packed up and shipped; I just need to pack my suitcases and get ready to go. (all my bags are packed / i'm ready to go)
Yet there's a gnawing sense of... incompleteness. There's something left to do, and I know what it is... but I don't know whether to or not. Or maybe I'm just too afraid to try. Maybe they are all weak excuses.
Maybe they aren't.
I didn't come here for this.
Everything I came to do, I have done.
Forty Eight hours to go.
*****
There are some people we're so used to seeing happy that it distresses us when they're not. It's almost a conditioned response - happy person not happy. Must be very bad. Bad thing.
It's especially apparently when the person is in the public spotlight; facades are essentially masks, and when the cracks appear the sheep become unsettled. They want their primetime predictability. They want their goddesses to remain flawless.
Sometimes I wonder though, when the sheep begin to instinctively bleat their reflex-arc sympathetic get-well-soons whether their well wishes are for the recipient, or for themselves.
Do they really care how much that person is hurting?
Can you really care about someone if you've never known them in real life? Sometimes it's hard enough caring even when you have...
Or do they just want to salve their own unease with a smear-on get-happy-soon! comment. The quick-fix wonderdrug for heartbreak. (which in truth, for some of us, the cynics - isn't enough either. But we smile and try to accept graciously and shrug it all off, while our hearts continue to fracture. Like white lies, there are white hypocrisies too. We do it to make the rest of the world happy again...)
I don't want to see anyone hurt. Especially not people I see as friends - or new acquaintences / almost-friends (it takes time with me; I don't trust that easily anymore)
But I won't bug anyone to be happy soon, soon, too soon either. Time will be as time is. Sometimes that's all it takes; time. Till someone laughs again. For real.
Yet sometimes time is not enough.
I'll just say this.
Sometimes beauty isn't about wearing the perfect mask, but about the person inside, behind the mask, and how she weathers the storm.
And if she lets you in; you see the truth. And happiness / sadness - doesn't change how remarkable she is.
*****
Two separate moments in time.
Two pairs of eyes.
Two cars.
One thing in common. A deep sorrow.
Two different reasons.
Both souls... heart-rendingly beautiful.
