The summer before my senior year of college, I had lunch with Leah, an old friend from high school. I was anxious about the months ahead, especially post-graduation life. On this particular day in late August, we sat in the local bagel shop and we talked about the finality and the unknowns. I was staring down the barrel of perhaps the most important school year of my life and I was half-scared I wouldn't make it. To Leah, I mused: what will I do once it’s over? What are the choices? What am I supposed to do? What do I want to do?
And then I confessed: "I am feeling suffocated."
Leah nodded her head in agreement and twisted the cap off of her drink. “Steph,” she said. “Look.” She passed the drink cap to me and in small, block letters, stained by grape juice, I read the inscription.
"Happiness is a decision."
Leah always seemed happy. You could look at her and see what some might consider a strange girl, but she was completely comfortable in her own skin. A quality I envied and admired. She proudly wore 7-11 employee shirts even though she worked at the Circuit City in town; her pants came from a thrift store and the shoes on her feet were the same ones worn by the skater boys in our class. There was a tube of Chapstick hanging around her neck on a rope and she kindly reminded everyone that you never know when you're gonna need soft lips. When all the cool kids were getting the latest models, Leah lusted after a late 1970s Volkswagen Beetle which she paid to have painted orange with sparkles in it. (For Halloween, she made a green cardboard thing and attached it to the top of the car and proclaimed that she was driving a pumpkin.) We'd ride around in her Beetle and belt out the lyrics to No Doubt songs, especially "Spiderwebs." Leah was a misfit of a harmless, happy sort. And in some ways, I was too. Or at least, I wanted to be... and still do.
Anyway, I kept that bottle cap for years. I always wanted to be reminded of a few things:
* When I am staring down the barrel of something scary and unknown, I need to remember that choices have to be made. It's better to make the wrong decision than to languish in indecision... although it is far preferable to make the right decisions. But life is hard and full of pitfalls and mistakes simply get made. We get scarred up and we fall down at some point or another. We just have to do the best we can and when we know better, we must do better. (I think Maya Angelou once said something to that effect and I'm sure she said it much more eloquently.)
*Happiness is a decision. In the recent months, as I have been alone, I have become more keenly aware that there is one undeniable truth. At the end of the day, I must be able to lay my head down and feel centered. I need to find a way to make peace with myself and all the little splinters that exist within me. I have to find some harmony between my head, my heart, and my gut. For most of my life, much of my happiness has been predicated on other people being ok or an external set of conditions being met and so my happiness wasn't always truly authentic to me. Now, I am faced with an overwhelming question: what will make me happy? Deep down on a soul level? I think I am beginning to figure it out... and it is both terrifying and tantalizing.
*Misfits are the very best kind of folks. I need to remember Leah's example. It is ok to be comfortable in your own skin... to say boldly to the world, "This is who I am, like it or not." It is ok to be different and strange and a misfit. At the end of the day, happiness is a state of being based on the decisions we make. And I am ready to choose now.
Finally.
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