It takes a village to live

Trying to make a point while eating chicken wings doesn’t make it as serious as it should be. But I am serious about what I write today because thoughts have been burning my mind. Trying so hard just te be happy — goddarnit. We all are. But sometimes you wonder why you can’t just get all you want. 

This kid I teach inspired me. He told me about his dog and how quick his family was to pull the plug. I get it; he does not. Dog was incurable, needed to be put down. “They should’ve let him die naturally,” he said. And deep down I knew exactly what he meant. But how to explain to a kid that being gone is probably much nicer than suffering? 

I’m just being real here. I think I’m old enough to say I’ve seen it all.

Yet I’m nobody to make that call. Certainly not his dad, certainly not his mom, certainly not a divine force. He almost teared up — if he already hadn’t and I missed — while explaining his dog’s illness to me and how hard he works to be a dad to a new dog. He’s only nine years old and, yes, I know he was also trying to get away with not doing homework. But it got me thinking, aren’t we all just trying to be happy without so much effort?

Why is it that it takes a village even to just breathe…to just exist? Because let me tell you something, some of us are walking but that’s because someone else is pulling the strings. Therapists, families, oftentimes it’s our friends; we wouldn’t make sense of life or have the will to keep going if it weren’t for and because of them. 

Sometimes it feels like it takes a darn village to live.

So I’m writing this just to say that all we seek in life is just happiness. Really. Something so easy yet so remote. That’s why it annoys me to no end when people tell me to smile when only I know what’s been happening for a while; that it hasn’t been pretty or breezy and not at all easy. And if it were that simple, we wouldn’t be pushing all these notes, all these blogs, books, and quotes about how to find happiness in a world that we so well know.