Get Happy

I often get asked if I am “always this happy.”  Some people even make blanket (and most likely true) statements like “nobody can be that happy all the time.”  I’m not, and I can’t.  I am, however, joyful most of the time.  My internal “joyful” does not always translate as an outward expression of “happy.”  We will get to that in a minute.

My desire to "get happy" goes back to the MGM musicals I used to watch on the Big Money Movie with Bernie Calderwood in the formative years of my youth.  The good guys always won, the guy always got the girl, the show always went on, the day was always saved and everyone came out happy.  I will never forget the first time I saw the closing number from Summer Stock, where Judy Garland (in a hat and smoking jacket) implores us all to "shout hallelujah come on get happy!"  Find a lamp post, a wall, a staircase, a hat rack . . . and dance and sing and be happy!  Even in the rain.

For years I thought if I worked at staying happy, then life would be one big Busby Berkeley production number.  I became an actor, and a very good one.  People like being around happy people, I noticed.  I was the life of the party on the outside, but drowning in insecurities and confusion on the inside.  My acting became more akin to selling my soul. I will do your bidding if you will like me.  I will be anything you want me to be for your validation.  

Not a path I would recommend if you are looking for joy, but I happened to find it there.  I learned a lot of painful and powerful lessons, and I have no regrets.  Perhaps it was the only path for me to get to this moment.  Maybe I had to find my demon to see my divine. Perhaps the only way for me to find my compassion was through prostituting myself for approval.  

Through it all, I found that, while I might not always be happy, I can be joyful in the midst of struggle, hardship, poor health and even grief.  And I learned that the outward "happy" has much more to do with the inward peace I feel than anything else. 

I still watch old musicals and imagine myself as Esther Williams, and I still work at staying happy . . . but not for anyone else.  I like being around happy people, I noticed.