Happy?

Do you ever see smiling, engaged youngish folks and think, what are they smiling about?  Was I ever like that?  Happy about nothing?  Not staring into the abyss?  Maybe I was.  Lightness of spirit, enthusiasm, jolliness, gameness, all seem sort of alien to me now.  But I think I was like that once.  Maybe twice.  It’s surprising to me that anyone can be in these times, but maybe it comes with youth.  If you’re thin and good looking and things are going ok… ok, be happy I guess.

It’s not just young people although they’re the ones the chasm feels the achiest about.  Happy people my age or older just look simple.  (Not really—although there’s an older couple – probably in their 70s I’d guess-- I frequently pass on my walk to the metro.  They’re just out on a morning constitutional I’ve gathered over the years.  They’re always smiling and holding hands as they walk – if not actually physically then at least sort of metaphysically in an unspoken clasp of digits.  As we approach, they both lock onto my eyeballs and give a nod and a silent but jovial “hi!”   I’ve grown to hate them.  (Not really—but I do think poorly of them in spite of myself.  I sometimes imagine that they are so unconsciously suffocated by each other that they involuntarily try to suck other humans into their toxic orbit in hopes of rescue.))