"How is your day?" I asked the girl at Ta Kardasia, as she got my chicken bougatsa from the case.
"It is not great. It isn't terrible. But it isn't great," the roughly 20 year-old replied. I admired her candor rather than the usual perfunctory, "I'm fine!"
"So, it's 'not bad'?" I asked
"Yes – it's not bad. I have had better days. But it's not a bad day," she said – feeling like we had settled on the right phrase.
"I think a lot of days are like that."
"Yes, they are. That's most of the days," she said without a note of sadness or pain, but instead a certain satisfaction that we had encapsulated things correctly.
I can't say if it's a cultural difference, maturity or both that led this girl to understand the distinction between happiness and joy in the course of one's life, but I can say it's something American youths and even adults struggle with.
I was recently talking to a friend who has been in a challenging stretch of life for awhile – a descriptor I could use to describe several friends, honestly. I hadn't talked to this friend in awhile and of course hoped for an improvement in her situation. I realized quickly that my questions reflected my hopes and that didn't sit well – because she's in the thick of it without a hope in sight.
"It's not good, but I get up and go to work, do the errands, go to all the places, come home, wake up and do it all again the next day. I don't even know why I do it and I don't see it changing," she said. What she didn't say – though obvious to us both – is that despite her unhappiness, she has a kid and so she chugs forward. Again, five months ago I might well have said the same thing.
I have seen my friend in better times – more joyous ones, more contented ones. But that hasn't been her last eight months. As someone who was in the same valley as her for the past couple of years, I wanted to give her my hand – try to pull her out. That's not her path. In fact, she showed me lots of support and kindness as I struggled through the divorce and time leading up to it. She was in a better place then. She listened and let me know she was in my corner. She told me nice things about myself when I wasn't feeling it.
I know what that feels like and wasn't there very long ago. So there I was wanting to give my friend back the care she offered me, only to realize the best thing I could do was listen and empathize. I can't know what will begin to change things for the better – and it's not my job. She didn't try to fix anything for me – she just reminded me I'd have better days. So I did the same for her. My friend doesn't let things in easily when she's upset, but I think some of what I offered found its way through the iron gates.
The thing my friend has right – and it was the case for me, so I know – is that her kid is a sustained form of happiness. The relationship we have with our kids, sustaining them, helping and watching them grow – that's something not so easy to let go of despite everything else. In the end, lasting love is made of acts of devotion and through that we find a contented, sustained happiness. Or, a slightly different version used by my favorite yoga teacher, "Esteemable acts create self-esteem." It's the devotion to performing those acts - whether or not we feel like doing them – that actually rewards us.
Last night – yesterday at home – my Uncle Bob died. He was my uncle through marriage, but in my heart that made no difference. It did affect the amount of time we spent together following my aunt and uncle's divorce. What mattered is the love between us – and it was always there.
My Uncle Bob's last two or so years were not his best. A combination of Leukemia and dementia robbed him of his independence and quality of life. For some time, Uncle Bob had been hiding his Leukemia from his daughters until the dementia led to him forgetting to order and take his pills. The ensuing health crisis led to the truth coming out. He then spent a lot of time in Skilled Nursing Facilities, visited regularly by his daughters.
As one might expect, Uncle Bob didn't go from perfectly well to gravely sick – he just lost his ability to cover his tracks. My cousins Amy and Ivy had a lot of clean-up to do on his affairs and finances. There were a lot of decisions and they gave of their time and money.
There were years when my uncle wasn't his best self. In some ways, he came to a point in life where he fell down and never quite got back up. However, especially for his daughters' younger years, he was a loving and devoted father who liked to show up for his girls. Later on, as he went through his own crises, he did some damage and did not always show up as his best. But in his later years, he and his daughters did better again and in the end, whatever had transpired along the way, my cousins showed up and gave their devotion.
I can never know all the perceptions and feelings my cousins have had at any given time. However, I surmise they made the choices they did as much for them as their father. Our acts of devotion – hard as they may sometimes be – are esteemable. They are the love we keep. They are our core happiness.
The tricky part is the joy. We all want to feel the serotonin reward and it is important. Finding joy amid the mundane is extremely beautiful. My Great Aunt Rose always stands out to me as someone who found joy wherever she turned – amidst both big and little things and among both the easy and difficult. When her husband of more than 50 years passed, Aunt Rose had never so much as written a check. She raised the kids and Uncle Abe worked and paid the bills. Although her grief was real, she took joy in learning to write checks and handle her own affairs. After a little while, she ended up on a cross-country road trip with several of her widowed sisters-in-law, enjoying herself in good company. A few years later, she met Hank, her boyfriend and companion for the remainder of her life – who she married at age 91 to ensure that if she passed first, he would get her condo.
One time I spoke to Aunt Rose shortly after she had her first (and so far as I know, only) heart attack. She told me that while it was scary, she had dropped weight as a result of her hospitalization and recovery – was now a size 12, and bought herself a new wardrobe. She also said the experience helped her better understand her friends and neighbors in her Bocca Raton retirement community who have various health issues, so she started making and delivering meals to them. Lastly, Aunt Rose realized life is short and made sure she and Hank went out dancing twice a week.
It should be noted she ALWAYS dressed immaculately and had her hair and makeup done meticulously at all times. Aunt Rose aged extremely gracefully.
Aunt Rose is always my hero when it comes to joy.
I suppose, if we look at Aunt Rose, sustained joy could be considered a practice – a devotion to a perception or perspective. Aunt Rose's life wasn't charmed – in fact she survived breast cancer in the 1960's when her odds of dying were very high and she grew up in an extremely poor household with an angry, philandering father who left a wife and nine kids to largely fend for themselves. For whatever reason – innate or consciously decided – she looked at the world through Aunt Rose colored glasses.
Most of us haven't figured out her prescription. Instead, joy comes in moments and waves as we pass through life. We can get lifted up on its crest and fall when it breaks. Sometimes we get caught in undercurrents that feel like they will pull us out to sea and our lives will never be happy again.
"We see those magazines in the grocery store with the celebrities and who's dating who and how this one fell out of love, got divorced and then remarried and now is happy," Cynthia the couples therapist Emily and I saw used to say a lot, "That's romance. That excitement is at the beginning when your brain floods with chemicals and your receptors are soaking in joy. That's not love. Love is what comes after all that when you suddenly realize the person you thought you were with is not who you wake up to anymore."
Cynthia's prescription – devotion. Love is a lifetime of listening, making time, performing caring acts, engaging with curiosity, reframing in the face of difficulty and knowing your spouse or partner is not you. They are a different person. Love can deepen and even be better – it's just not serotonin-based.
Or as the fox told The Little Prince, "It is the time you have wasted on your rose that matters."
I have Cynthia's voice on loop in the back of my head a lot. Being a new relationship is fun. There's definitely serotonin involved and I can't say it doesn't' help my outlook. I feel a lot less trapped in the undercurrent. It makes me want to tell my suffering friend, "Wait, it WILL get better" – which she absolutely does not want to hear right now.
I also know I have to be smarter than my brain chemistry. As one friend told me, "The beginning of a relationship is when we start writing our contracts. It's when we need to be our most critical and clear and our brains are totally fucked."
Fair point.
So I'm trying to do two things – enjoy and think. Maybe I can walk and chew gum at the same time because I know I can and should. Especially because anything worth building is worth building right.
"Life has seasons," another good friend recently told me, "Two years ago you were going into a new season and you had a lot on your plate. It was a hard season. Now, it seems to me like the seasons are changing once again. It's okay for a chapter to close and a new one to begin. It's just the next season."
I think she's right.
