Recently, I have been weighed down by adolescence. The mood swings, erratic frustration, and chronic sarcasm were constant reminders of my growing up. I was complaining to my parents, nagging my brother, ranting to my friends. People say that these years define who we will be as adults: Is this who I will become? The more I struggled with finding myself, the more nostalgia I felt for my childhood innocence. To sort out my own happiness, I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. In her best-seller, the author pursues happiness through monthly goals. I chose three: Give hugs, anticipate happy moments, and recall happy memories. I would like to share with you my recent quest for happiness.
One Monday in December, I tried my first experiment. Rubin said, “Hugging relieves stress, and boosts feelings of closeness.” A University of North Carolina study found that hugs decrease the risk of heart disease by increasing a “bonding” hormone known as oxytocin, and also releasing serotonin and dopamine, two “feel-good” chemicals for your brain. Rubin says that a hug needs six seconds to be effective. I gave as many six-second hugs as possible on Monday and I was genuinely happy all day. I felt protected, within the arms of my friends and family.
Next I tested Rubin’s second theory: Anticipation of a happy event is often happier than the event itself. I tried anticipating happy moments like Christmas. The long week before winter break meant Modern World tests and Spanish conjugation quizzes. In years past, anticipating Christmas meant holiday activities; baking cookies; eating my mom’s macaroni and cheese; spending time with my friend Ben on Christmas Eve, like always. Ms. Rubin’s words worried me: If I did not feel wild anticipation about Christmas, maybe I would not enjoy Christmas at all. On the way to the market after school, once winter break started, my mom told me I had an orthodontist appointment next Tuesday, Ben and his family were going to Chicago on Wednesday, my fourth cousins had invited us over for Christmas Eve, and they had said no to my mom bringing her macaroni and cheese for dinner. I leaned my cheek against the frosty car window, staring at the gray mist settling over the even grayer East Milton Square. Frantically, I searched for something to stifle the sadness. Pitiful strands of holiday lights had been thrown over the barren trees. The street cut through town; the seven coffee chains and four nail salons clustered together; a frail grandmother tried to cross the road. How could the holidays possibly come when they were buried within this gray world? Gretchen Rubin was wrong. Anticipation doesn’t fuel happiness; it only causes stress. I tilted my head toward the roof of the car, trying to get the tears to fall backward into my eye sockets. In that moment I saw the sky. It stretched across the entire town, hugging the gray center within a colorful embrace. The sky was pink and yellow and orange and blue and red and green. The sun’s light harmonized with the sky’s calm; my drying eyes soaked up the sunset. I had not anticipated that colorful sky. The beauty in the unexpected had dried up the hopelessness.
My last experiment was to “recall happy memories.” Rubin argues that remembering happy moments of the past is a large part of feeling satisfied in the present. I tried remembering. Remember those long car rides when you’d fall asleep in the backseat, and after the car rumbled to a stop in the driveway, your father would scoop you up in his arms and carry you into the house, his heavy footfalls echoing through the night, your chin knocking gently against his shoulder? Sometimes I would pretend I was asleep in the car just so I could have my dad carry me in. I remember listening to my parents’ whispers harmonize with the sounds of the freeway and the lights on the car dashboard. I remember the intense feeling of comfort as I snuggled up against my booster seat with my blanket tucked underneath my chin. I remember the feeling of safety and wonder and trust as I watched my dad drive down the freeway, keeping me warm and secure.
Over winter break, my family left for Vermont the day after the blizzard of 2010. My dad drove 20 miles per hour on the freeway, and three cars slid off the road in front of us. My mother and sister and I were yelling at my dad to go slower and take the nearest exit. I thought I was going to die. I cannot believe I used to feel safe in that minivan. Recalling my childhood only reminds me of moments I cannot return to. I struggle with the idea of growing up. I love the thrill of getting older, leaving my parents at home. I want to take the wheel but miss the feeling that somebody else is going to take care of me. Looking back does make you realize what you need. What you need as a kid is not so different from what you need as an adult. I am still looking for ways to feel that others are taking care of me.
Last summer, at my uncle’s house, a birds’ nest fell out of the electrical box when a repair crew was fixing the transformer. They tried putting it back, but it did not quite fit. I guess I have fallen out of the electrical box. I cannot go back now, so why keep trying when I can find a new and different place to feel safe? The birds found a new home in my uncle’s gutter, but they had to fly there first.
I have no answers on happiness except that hugs really do work. Anticipation is not as good as finding beauty in the unexpected. Memory can only make me happier if it can capture a feeling of the past and apply it to the present. I still do not know what happiness is, but I do know what it is not. It is not anticipating Friday, or waiting for Christmas, or walking down memory lane. It is about bringing together the past and the future into the present, making it happen now. We make our own happiness.
Emmie Atwood ’14
Class IV—The Best of the Talks