Mid-Cupcake Unhappiness: Why are we sad during our best moments?

Scout has this HORRIBLE habit of experiencing a thing and instead of loving it for what it is, she makes a wish. Like mid-bite of a cupcake she will say “I wish I could have a cupcake for dinner.” Or if she wins a stuffed animal from one of those claw machines (because she does, and I thought they were all rigged), she will say “I wish I had TWO stuffed animals” before the first one has even reached her hands.

It makes me crazy.

You know how the things that make your blood pressure rise are almost always buried deep in your own ribcage?

I am cruising toward 40 with the ever-increasing conviction that life is right now. Happy is only ever right here, right now. I’m not talking about faith, or hope or eternity. I’m talking about the substance those things can produce in us. That heavy, grateful awareness of the here and now. Because if my whole life is lived wishing for something else, someplace else, some better moment or better body or better car - then I’m not in my life. I might escape the hard but I’ll also be dodging the satisfaction of a good day, or a good kiss or a good, clean sink.

I fear the only way to wake up to this is after terror or struggle or loss drags you down. Then you resurface — gleaming and recalibrated — but the air has changed. Now you see when others go down in a way you never did before.

I took this picture of myself at the ski lodge because I was doing that thing. I was in the middle of so much good and I was wishing for more. I was thinking about problems. And I caught myself, mid-cupcake. That is a strong mental muscle now. I can shift into happy as simply as flipping into selfie mode. I can turn that lens around in seconds. I can recover my day from the watery what-ifs of the future and pull it back into the body of the moment. A long time ago I took a blue Bic pen and beside that line that says “God is an ever-present help in times of trouble,” I wrote “now” and a tiny blue heart which keeps it in my memory.