A famous psychic once told me I would experience great happiness at the end of my life. In other words, after chasing happiness my whole life, I’ll finally find it then drop dead. How long will said happiness last? A decade? A year or two? A couple of weeks? Or will I stroke out after that first feeling of joy filling my body? And is she right?
I don’t want to take any chances.
Now, every time a sliver of happiness invades my consciousness, I slam my head against a wall until it goes away. This works. But slamming my head against a wall, or my hand in a car door, or throwing myself down the stairs, is expensive what with the medical bills and such. So now, when happiness threatens to strike, I watch movies like “Requiem for a Dream” or “Irreversible”, and I’m soon unhappily back to my normally miserable self.
I’m happy I’m miserable but I can’t be too happy I’m miserable or I’ll die, so I have to monitor the amount of almost-happiness I’m dealing with. It’s a Catch 22. (A great film but I have to be careful because it’s funny – at the beginning, anyway.) When a laugh bubbles up, I fast-forward to the end, to the part where I feel like someone punched me in the stomach, and all is good. Good. Not great. Certainly, not great enough to produce happiness, which is good.
I know what you think. You think I’m a weirdo living in fear and wasting my one precious life. My life is just fine, thank you very much. It’s neutral. Like Switzerland or a room painted Benjamin Moore’s Barely Beige or Brandy Cream. To be honest, numb might be a better word for it, but numb is better than dead. If I had to give it a paint colour name, I’d call it something like Frontal Lobotomy Beige or Anesthetized Almond. It may not be Fiesta Yellow or Paisley Pink, but at least it’s not Mahogany Coffin.
The goodish news these days is I no longer have to physically hurt myself, watch psychologically abusive films or date narcissists in order to be miserable. All I have to do is open my computer.
Every morning, I doom scroll, content in the knowledge that I am defying death. And wow, what a smorgasbord of misery to dine out on. I couldn’t have picked a better time or place to be alive and not happy, since what’s happily happening lately is the pinnacle of unhappiness. Phew! There is absolutely no danger of me experiencing happiness these days – or anytime soon – and I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s even more effective than going to Trader Joe’s on Sunday.
I know it’s selfish—my family and all. But being unselfish creates that cozy, hot-chocolate-on-a-cold-winter night kind of happiness. The kind of happiness that would kill me. And since I’d like to live a long—albeit unhappy—life, I’ll just stay desolate and despondent like everyone else.
Everything is so happily unhappy these days, I just might live forever.
Gail is a screenwriter. You can find her work in McSweeney’s, The Sun, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, The Belladonna Comedy, Weekly Humorist and elsewhere. She lives in L.A. with her Brit husband, adorable poodle mix, and a couple of coyotes who hang out in front of her house every night hoping the cats across the street will come out and party.
@gailmacsmith.bsky.social