Day #343 Writing Through COVID-19: Happiness

For the past 343 days, I've trained my eye on the pandemic, determined to chronicle whatever COVID-19 brought my way.

During the first months, the shift to masking, distancing, protecting loved ones, and adjusting even the smallest of life's routines provided a deep pool for reflection each night.

Add to that the unexpected re-homing of my aging parents in my basement, then the birth of a first grandbaby I have yet to see.  

When school resumed and COVID peaked in Iowa, the pandemic glowed like a hot coal in the center of my days. 

We muddled our way through distanced holidays, then reeled from the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tensions across the world are stretched to the breaking point. The promise of a vaccine hovers on the horizon: surely when the pandemic subsides, the bludgeoning disappointments and anger that have defined the past year will also abate. Or so it's tempting to believe.
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One of my students is writing her research paper on happiness. While helping her with finding sources, I came upon an article on how bad we are at predicting what will make us happy. We think aging will make us less happy, it said, yet the opposite is true. We mistakenly hold out weight-loss or job promotions or new relationships as keys to happiness.

This got me thinking. Am I romanticizing the fantasy of my post-pandemic life, unrealistically believing the "if it weren't for COVID" fallacy? I do not want to neglect opportunities for joy in the present by choosing instead to push all of my hope for happiness into a future space.
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You'd think a cancer diagnosis at 45 would shake a person into a habit of living in the NOW, whatever that is, even a COVID now.

And you'd be right. It did. For awhile.

But embracing the now, the here, the today is an ongoing effort. I'm glad my student's research project brought this back into my viewfinder.
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Here and now:

• Cycling for a second day with Emma gave me an endorphin rush that (for a few hours) convinced me I was superwoman.
• My yearbook staff engaged in a thoughtful discussion about (surprise?) happiness today. A poster in the hall proclaimed: Choose Happy! K wondered aloud if we can, in fact, control happiness. She said she sometimes just feels sad and cries. G talked about introversion. H said her "happiness" is sometimes totally fake. M suggested that we CAN choose positivity, and that might, in turn, increase the possibility of happiness, but we can't beat ourselves up when we're not feeling happy. (Yes, this conversation happened while we were  designing the yearbook cover.)
• Tonight I spent an hour on a Zoom poetry reading organized by the Iowa Poetry Association. I was uplifted by beautiful poems flung into the world by brave and eloquent (if not all happy) writers.

Enough.
Be well.
Write a poem.

Allison

It's summer in NZ!