Waiting for your Fontanelle to Harden…
When I was 5 Years Old, my Mom told me Happiness was the KEY to life…
When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up…
I wrote down “Happy”
They told me, I didn’t understand the assignment…
I told them, they didn’t understand Life.
………………….
OK, so I was a smart ass. Believe me, I paid for it throughout my educational career, most of the time it was worth it, the adoration of my burgeoning fan club was forged during this time. Fast forward 3000 years to present day, does anyone you know have the luxury of concentrating on “happy” these days? Do you even remember the things that made you happy? In most cases they were, as the cliché says, the simpler things – riding your bike, hanging out with friends, picnics… waaaaay back when we were kids, as our Fontanelle was still hardening, this is how clueless we were, we used to run and run and run, for NO REASON… we ran, more than we walked, from the house to the car, from the kitchen to the bedroom, from the backyard to the front, as a matter of fact, until I was about 12, my sister thought my name was “SLOW DOWN”, snarled, with a thinly veiled exasperation. Since then, and believe me I don’t remember applying for the name change – but it has definitely changed, now it seems to be “Hurry Up” with absolutely nothing veiled – more like open contempt dripping from every word. Nowadays if we run, it’s to get to the bathroom before your extra strength depends explode…
But enough of that, let’s get back to happy, we all have things that used to make us happy, that through no fault of our own have fallen by the wayside. It’s no ones fault, it just happens. Think back to when you were younger, what’s one particular thing that made you happy, what did you get lost in, what did you do that made time simultaneously fly and stand still? Allowing you to pass hours doing it and then when you looked up, feeling as if only minutes had passed. I’d love to hear about some of them…
For me, it was styling bouffant hair-dos, the bigger the better. Oh sure it was a little different, a tough yet sweet inner-city kid with a dream, one crazy dream – to perfect the biggest and best bouffant his little arms could muster. I can still hear the words pipe-dream echoing in my head as I ran crying from one salon after another, temporarily defeated but never broken… the womens cat-calls chasing me, taunting me, haunting me… There were tough times, times I’m not proud of, but mine wouldn’t be the first hard luck story about a kid willing to sell his body to be able to afford another case of aqua-net…. hours spent sneaking into salons, trying to get the flip and curl techniques just right…. it was a dream I had no right to ever expect to pull off… but this fella doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit.
Then, eventually the planets aligned and in one shining, perfect moment, it happened – all my hard work, the hours of study paid-off, the sleepless nights, endlessly working and re-working my sisters dolls hair, it all culminated in this one single perfect moment, ladies and gentlemen I give you the biggest and best bouffants, yes plural….
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You don’t have to thank me, just knowing that you can take strength from my perfection is reward enough… to see someone work towards a goal and one day to realize that dream, well I can only imagine my parents must feel about me, as the parent of Olympic athletes feel, to see their child reach the absolute pinnacle of their game….. now go do something for yourself that makes you happy…. or if you want, I could do your hair…..
Have a Great Day
PS. I was getting a little sick and tired of all the sick and tired – so I’m gonna pretend for a little bit…. let’s all pretend together, that all is just peachy with me….. it’s fun to pretend.