It has to be simple, simple enough for everyone, even a kid to understand and to relate to. Not abstract. Not containing fancy words.
For him, happiness was about not caring where things were going. He had had this feeling before, long ago, almost in a different lifetime. When he was with the one he loved. That was the time he had been truly, in every possible sense of the word, happy. Not that there were no disappointments during this period. There were incidents in his personal, professional lives. But he knew it would all work out. Not thought, knew. It had to. You could call it naiveté, innocence or foolishness depending upon whether you were a romantic or a realist. If you ask me, I would say it was like being a child again. Think about it for a moment; you fall down even when you are a kid, graze your knees, break your teeth and feel pain, but ask people and most of them will say that that was the time when they were happy for the first time. That was the one time they would like to live again given the chance. No dream is too far fetched, no place out of bounds when you are a child. You could be anyone you wanted to be, anyplace to wanted to be, with whoever you wanted to be with. You just had to put on your wings of imagination and off you would go.
For him it was the same feeling when he had been in love. If there is a soul or spirit, that was the period of his life was when it was flying highest, floating, without disturbance or turbulence. Just that sound at the end of the day ‘Bache’ as his beloved called him, and he couldn’t care if the world turned on its head. There was truly no fear, just a belief that everything could be and would be taken care of. It wasn’t indifference, no, just an uncanny certainty. It was like being constantly high on opium, only it was something much stronger. There was no one who would judge him, at least those that mattered wouldn’t.
It wasn’t all about the child inside though. As children, we do not have major responsibilities. He did now. He took it upon himself to keep a smile on his love’s face. So he worked towards it, thinking of some way to keep it there and when he saw it happen, he felt a light headedness that was difficult to put in words but made his heart smile, if there was any such thing.
Isn’t that what getting high is all about? As age pours dust over your wings to weigh you down, letting go of the struggle and flowing with the flow helps you shake that dust off and soar again, even if it is for a short time, even if it is escapist.
For him, it wasn’t something he had wanted, or even thought possible. He had scoffed at the idea when others had brought up something like it. But now that he had it, he could not imagine a life without it, nor did he want to. He was busy living it and the thought that it might not last was sacrilege.
So yes, happiness need not be a moment, but a series of them put together to form a necklace of pearls. A trance like feeling that lifts you up, takes you higher and makes you fly, far above the crazy crowds and keeps you there. The irony of course, is that such a feeling is doomed from the start. You know the phrase, ‘too good to be true’; this is one of those things. Would he still want it? I have my doubts. Probably no. He was now wiser. He was now grown up. For good.
