Also, someone who used to be one of my best friends, with whom I stupidly got out of touch, is having major surgery right now, and I watch way too many medical dramas to not be mildly freaked out about that. Update: She's recovering slowly but surely
So, in the interest of distraction, and because it’s always good to remember good things that happened, and people the happened with, especially if you haven’t seen those people in a long time, here’s a list of Five Happy Moments I Can Think of Right Now**
1987ish- Playing in the flooded street. For pretty much the rest of my childhood every time it rained I hoped it would flood. I think part of what made it so fun was that I usually wasn’t allowed to do things like a) play in filth, b) get my clothes soaked and c) play in the street and all of a sudden, all three at once! Kudos to my parents for acknowledging crazy circumstances and just running with it. Or maybe they were busy freaking about the destruction everything stored in the basement.
1989sh- Making noodles. I’m not really clear on what was so great about this (though in the picture above, I’m clearly having a Time), I was totally obsessed with making noodles from that day on. Still, when I try to picture a happy family times, this is the first instance that comes up. For a white, middle class family with 2.3 kids, we really didn’t get up to a lot of wholesome family togetherness.1993ish- South Dakota. We were driving from somewhere to somewhere else (which is what most of my childhood vacation memories consist of) and my brother or I saw a little creek out the window and began demanding that Dad pull over so we could play in it. Remarkably, he actually did. It was freezing and slippery and awesome. I wish I had a picture for this one because I was wearing a pretty fabulous outfit, which consisted of calf-length leggings covered in huge neon pink, green and orange flowers and a black t-shirt with the same flowers (in puff-paint) on the front. I had adorned one corner with an acid-washed denim scrunchie. Also, on that trip we visited the Corn Palace, which has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd mention it because it's awesome.
This next one is mildly pathetic, but I’m just writing them down as they occur to me.
1996ish- I’m getting ice cream after a with my soccer team after a game. The ice cream place has one mirrored wall. When I accidentally glance that way, I immediately look down (so there’s no chance of seeing myself and being reminded how fat and hideous I am) and, since we are all still wearing our little white shorts and tall orange socks, I can’t tell which legs are mine and which belong to the other, things girls. This was such a joyful realization I was inspired to get actual ice cream (not frozen yogurt!) and eat it guilt-free for the first time since in at least 6 years. I was walking on air for the whole weekend, thrilled with the idea that I might actually be mistaken for a thin (and therefore worthwhile) person from time to time.***
2004ish- Kicking ice into Lake Michigan with some friends in the middle of the night. Or, an equal alternative: Sitting around another friend’s pool, stoned, talking about phone numbers. These are the sort of memories where on night stands in for dozens of similar nights. Basically, when we were all home from college on winter or summer breaks, we would occasionally end up doing nothing at all, and those were always the best times. It seems like now, getting together with anyone is such a nightmare of scheduling (and, lately, traveling) that there is this obligation to make a plan and do something to justify the effort. Not that going out and seeing art, or whatever other activities are planned, aren’t fun, but that comfortable, just sitting around and enjoying each other’s company without pressure to be entertaining and make it worth the trip to see and be seen doesn’t really to happen anymore.
I said five, but I can think of a least three more. Though the late 90s are pretty much a total wash... I mean, there are plenty of things that happened in those days which were formative or important, and a lot of things that sucked at the time but in retrospect were probably good, but I can’t think of a single moment of plain happiness. Even all the times I skipped school to get stoned with people were more about the absence of any immediate unhappiness.
Considering my tendency to be nostalgic about everything (remember the little 70s girl on the No-More-Tangles bottle? I miss her and her, and her perfect blonde ponytails), the fact that I can find nothing to be nostalgic about from, say, 7th-12th grade is pretty telling. In fact, despite for a brief bright spot when I was in San Francisco, I pretty much hated everything about life from the time I started wearing a bra until the road trip that I took to Maine the year after I graduate from high school.
You heard it here! All cool people were miserable as teenagers!
*As an aside, I think it’s pretty awesome that ABC has every episode of the show available to watch online. I’m sure it makes all kinds of financial sense for them, so it’s not like, altruistic. But it’s also a really nice gesture to fans, since the show is so full of complex and subtle call-backs to earlier events, and really benefits from rewatching. Furthermore, it’s an indicator they actually understand why people like the show and what makes it unique, which is pretty rare in network television).
**”Happiest” seems like it would require a lot of intense thought and debate.
***Yeah, that’s more than mildly pathetic. It is, in fact, pretty tragic. However, the upside is that now, whenever I am feeling neurotic about how I look, I can remember that moment, and think of pictures of myself from that era and remind myself how utterly insane I was back then. And how much time I wasted in middle school and high school being miserable about the fact that I was too fat to exist, when looking back (at the few pictures I allowed to be taken of myself) I was a perfectly acceptable, even pretty cute (if you can get past the Goth regalia) kid.
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