Allow me to back up a bit. In June 2015, a white supremacist terrorist entered the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot nine people dead. Five days later, my cousin died by suicide in her home, leaving behind a husband and two young kids. She had just turned 29. I was heartbroken by both events, and the way they occurred -- in such close proximity -- prompted me to feel an unfamiliar kind of sadness. I'm struggling to find the right words to describe it, but I know a lot of it had to do with this sense of unfairness. What were those people in Charleston doing to invite this tragedy? Literally nothing. They were worshiping and learning and praying in their church. There was no better, safer place for them to be. In my cousin's case, the suicide was an utter shock. She had never attempted suicide before or given any indication that it was something she thought about. She didn't have a history of depression or violence. But very shortly before her death, she'd started taking a new medication, one that rarely caused suicidal thoughts in the people who took it. As best our family can figure, the medicine made fast work of her mental state and left her unable to cope.
Both these things happened in June 2015. It's not that they sunk me into despair or anything that extreme, but they broke something inside me. The broken part became more jagged and rough through the Syrian refugee crisis, and then through the outcome of the 2016 election, and through a dozen other tragedies of large and small scales.
These past several months have also brought happy times, but it's like somehow the happiness couldn't sink in, you know? It couldn't permeate me, couldn't be a thorough, unabashed joy. Anytime I felt some measure of gladness or simple, silly pleasure, I felt weird, too, because why should I get to be happy about this or that thing when people in other places were suffering? Why did I get ease when they got abuse? How was that fair?
And of course, it wasn't fair, and the world is never fair, and I'd known that before, but I was hung up on this fact in a new way, and it complicated my happiness. To be honest, I think that's okay; I think happiness ought to be complicated every once in a while if it's going to be honest and deep. And I want any happiness I have to be just that: honest and deep.
As I'm about to turn 30, and as I spend every day with my two tiny kids, I think about what I want to model for them. I find it's a useful tool, to think about what I want for them as they get older and then apply the same expectations to myself. When it comes to happiness in our unfair world, what do I want for my son and daughter? When they learn about the suffering of another person, I want them to give a damn. I want them to mourn and comfort and volunteer and get mad at how pointless it can be to try to change the world for the better, because that's what caring looks like sometimes. I also want them to enjoy their happiness. I want them to show love and gratitude and enthusiasm with their whole hearts, not half. I don't want them to feel weird, shallow, irresponsible, or guilty for enjoying their blessings and seeking out things that delight them. And since that's what I want for my kids, it's what I want for myself, too, and to accomplish that, I need to make some changes.
The illustrator Mari Andrew was going through some personal upheaval and decided to make a new drawing daily. She said about the project, "I put happiness on my calendar every day." Reading those words really inspired me to put happiness on my own calendar. Illustrations aren't my thing, but starting on my birthday (which is tomorrow, the 23rd), I'm going to pay special attention to what makes me say yes inside. Yes, this is important. Yes, that was phrased in exactly the right way. Yes, I need to understand this better. Yes, I couldn't agree more. I'm calling it my Year of Yes.
This doesn't mean the no in life doesn't matter or that I won't talk about it. I said it before: happiness ought to be complicated, and the kind of happiness that can only exist in perfect circumstances is worthless. Furthermore, sometimes the yes and the no are wrapped up in each other. It's why we laugh through tears. It's why we have the word "bittersweet."
So on Facebook, Instagram, and this blog, I'm going to document the inner yes and examine it for deeper insights. I'll use an old-fashioned journal for the super-private stuff. And we'll see what 30 has to say for itself.
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