EVERYDAY PEOPLE THAT’S YOU THAT’S ME

The title of this post is the beginning of a song from my childhood that heralds a television series I cannot remember much of now but I am nostalgic just thinking about it as I sing the opening lines in my mind it is like I am transported into memory and I can watch myself living in it but as an audience.

It is New Year’s Eve 2022 or what Germans call “Silvester”, and as I sit in my room listening to the fireworks from opposing directions, scrolling through social media, alternating viewing people’s statuses with reading a book by Jodi Picoult. I see in a glance people mixing videos and pictures that tell a story about 2022 in a flash as though it may make any meaning to another person viewing it. A person said to me “a picture only makes meaning to the person who knows the story behind it” sure that’s just one perspective but it is fitting here because only those people can adequately capture the story behind the pose. All I see is grateful people smiling amid happy moments.

This got me wondering about the unspoken smile, the angst behind seen memories, people hiding in the shadows, silent but pretending happiness, People who have suffered loss, people who have handled grief, felt heartache– soul-crushing moment, anguish, people whose body have been battered over and over again, people who have faced death countless time, people who spent every day looking at life from the grey lens, joyless, less vibrant, people who are not depressed but cannot bring themselves to be happy. people in between difficult places are not exactly joyful but not also sad. People who feel pressured to be grateful, people who are being triggered by trauma.

It occurs to me that the table set in each household on new years’ day will be telling different stories; for some, it is going to pass like every other day, some cannot even count days because now their memories are failing, and for some who are lying sick on the bed it may just be wishful thinking to be healthy enough to do a regular task or watch fireworks and party. I think about people living in pain every day because each breath is a motivation.

I encountered a person who thinks being positive means existing in positivity every day, minute, and second, to be so far removed from the negativity that it cannot even smell one’s imagination to be so lost in gratitude that there is not one moment spent in sadness. I used to think like that too because to me positivity meant fighting negativity at all costs, not giving room to any form of downtime, to be in perpetual ecstasy. it is easy to think that gloomy people chose not to be grateful, that people who are not exhilarating and give off a pessimistic vibe are just downright toxic, ruining our vibes.

People wake up suicidal, people commit suicide, and some people are naturally more disposed to melancholy than they are gay, they live life from their private corner finding expression in the storm in their mind. They smile, and they touch happiness like a shower of rain but they do not get drenched are these people toxic because the color of their lens is not rainbow?

Is it even possible that we all express happiness or sadness in the same way, is there an acceptable way to be happy? Oh, I am not saying there are no healthy ways and toxic ways, I am not saying that people cannot use help and cheering now and again, and I am not saying that we should leave people alone and let them be sad in peace or maybe I am saying that but what I am driving at is simply this what if happiness is also a smile and a frown? what if being a positive person means seeing negativity and being able to navigate it without a significant change in demeanor? what if it means joy and sorrow?

Why are we uncomfortable with sad memories, why do we pray against them? does it not make it harder when we want to exclude ourselves from experiencing events we may have no control over? I think in this world we’ll all have our seat at the table of sadness, we must have our share of ups and downs. Living is as essential as dying, dying is a part of life as is true for plants, it is for animals, and humans, it is the cycle of life. It is like seasons, they come and go, and we will one day become ancestors too, we strive to build a legacy but we do not want to depart, the irony. Maybe real joy is navigating sorrow happily or just navigating sorrow.

Your life does not lose its efficacy simply because you are not grinning every second like the sun on a bright summer afternoon, you are not any less happy because you still complained about bills after getting a pay raise, you are not less happy because you are less fortunate, you are not happier because you are more fortunate, happiness has no SI unit take your share the way it comes.

You would not be any happier living your perfect life as you would be living your imperfect life, happiness is where you are, even in the chaos, in the hurt, in the emptiness, with grief, with the scars, with the unpleasant memories, the mistake, the betrayal, the disappointment, the fractured dreams, and the trauma.

Life is dynamic enough to accommodate mundane, ups and downs and that can still be a good life. Not having a story that ends like a Disney cartoon is still a good enough story but I hope that you find the happiness that you desire, I hope that you soar in clouds of beautiful memories, I hope you thrive in optimism and fulfillment, I hope you have cause to grin from ear to ear daily, I hope you are your own biggest cheerleader but I also hope that when your happiness does not look like the image in your head that you can still take what you feel for happiness and exhaust it.

I hope that when you see people who do not smile as much as you do you are not myopic enough to label them sad. I hope that you are kind enough to label joy correctly no matter how grey it may look but ultimately, I hope you are kind to yourself when you think you are not happy enough or as happy as you ought to be.

I hope you just see yourself in the ordinary everyday sense maybe it is not that deep.

Happy New Year.