Living Happiness

flickr photo by: Planet Pixel

I don’t know if it’s a theme or what but after my reading of Glamour (or was it Redbook?) in the gym yesterday, I came across almost the same article in Redbook (or was it Glamour?) today. I know, I know … stop reading fashion magazines. Well, I can’t help myself. Okay, maybe I can help myself, but there they are, and they definitely make my minutes on the elliptical trainer go a lot faster … and they keep me on there, too. I don’t fool with the timer on the machine as much as I just hop on and figure, “By the time I get to the end of this magazine, I’ll have been on here at least 30 minutes, maybe 45 or so.” I feel lucky if the magazine has good enough articles that I actually read and am on there for an hour.

Anywho, none of this is neither here nor there, because I’m sure you don’t care about my make-time-pass cardio routine, and what I’m really trying to get to (very s l o w l y) is the article that was duplicated. Okay … maybe not duplicated word for word, but the topic was the same:

What tickled me, though, were reading some of these “naughty” things people were doing. I mean, come on, if the height of your naughtiness is not using a beverage coaster on a hot summer day with your iced mint tea, then I am a total and complete hellion by comparison. But I knew this already anyway …

flickr photo by g.originals

I like to break rules. Seriously. I do. It’s a strange glitch in my character which is otherwise very smitten with rules and order. In fact one of my little quirks is “lining things up,” in no way that I can really explain to people, but I happen to know it when it happens. Yet despite this affinity for all things linear there’s a funny little offshoot of my personality that says, “Screw order.”

And it is this offshoot of my personality that lovingly decorates the perfect Christmas tree – filling it with 500+ twinkle lights, working the ornaments from the top down and from the inside out, spacing everything just so — only to turn around and top off this work of art with a $7 gold tinsel star from K-Mart that flashes so many multicolor lights it might as well be a No-Tell motel on Sunset Strip.

This personality quirk lets me eat healthy, organic, preservative-free, hormone-free food religiously only to abandon my principles entirely when confronted with a meal of Lexington BBQ, hush puppies, crinkle fries, slaw, and a styrofoam cup of Cheerwine® to wash it all down with.

It’s behind my voracious appetite for romantic suspense, mass-market paperback thrillers despite my avowed book snobbery (I have a love-hate relationship with the New York Times Best-Seller lists).

And it’s the rationale behind why I would totally forsake any church wedding I could dream up (and believe me, I have) to just fly to Vegas and have the cheesiest, tackiest wedding ever with as many Elvises as possible singing Love Me Tender. (I have tried, with no success, by the way, to convince G of the merits of this plan, but he is not to be taken in. I think he doesn’t realize how romantic a half-dozen singing Elvises can be.)

Anyways, why do I go into all of this today? Mainly to argue against this notion that breaking the ties that bind us is something “bad” or “naughty.” There is nothing bad or naughty in being true to yourself, in giving yourself permission and freedom to do the things you love, to embrace the contradictions of your nature. (Within bounds, of course. You shouldn’t be harming other people. Not that you would … .)

I’ve heard that this phenomenon, this ability to accept and live with contradictions, is a bit more common in the East because unlike many Western ideologies, a lot of Eastern philosophies are non-linear in their application and scope. Perhaps this is so. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I like this side of myself that likes to break out, the side of myself that says, “Lose the map. We’re just going for a drive. Let’s see where we end up.” Maybe I wouldn’t want to live this way every day, but this part of me is a welcome respite and relief from my daily grind. She keeps me from getting bored (and getting boring). She makes me laugh, and I like her.

So I ask you today:

Lots of joy and freedom to you today,