Smile, and the world thinks you're nuts

I was told today my blog has been very depressing lately.

What can I say? I guess I'm a little depressed and a little depressing.

I was reading PostSecret - that doesn't help, by the way - and thinking about what my secret would be.

Well, I know what my real secret is, but what my secret I'd send to them would be.

And here's what I was thinking - and I know, sharing doesn't make it a secret, but I figure once I thought of it, I might as well share.

I would write this:

"I'm brilliant and well-educated,
and every day,
I wish I were stupid and happy and innocent."

Not much of an upper, I know. Relax, I'm getting there.

It's not that I don't like being smart - brilliant might be stretching it, but it sounded better to my writer's ears. It's that I overthink everything, I beat myself up about everything, I overanalyze everything.

And I really have no one to share it with but a stuffed monkey.

Sometimes (especially on blind dates) I find myself cursing inside, feeling like I'm talking too much. But part of me suspects that's cabin fever. Am I lonely? I like spending time alone, but I think the strain of living alone, with no one to talk to, no one to share with, may be getting to me.

Especially after several months of stress at work and more stress in my personal life.

When I was in high school, I won one of the biggest senior awards, and the teacher who presented it, in his speech, called me introspective.

He meant that as a compliment, but I've always found it to be more of a curse.

Have you ever met somebody who's genuinely happy all the time, at least to the public eye? I've known a few, and they're usually either kind of stupid or kind of ditzy or whatever. And I do envy those people.

Maybe they're miserable at home when I don't see them, but they always look happy.

I'd like to be happy all the time.

I'd smile more.

Now, when I smile, people think I'm nuts. Maybe it's because I AM nuts. But that's not the point. The point is, I don't think people believe me.

But I am happy. Maybe not right now. Maybe not this month. But generally, I am.

I'm grateful for the things I have, and the people in my life. And my stuffed monkey.

But when a person has problems, a lot of that symbolic, metaphorical crap doesn't really count for much. Their problems are what matter to them. I'm no better, and I'm no different.

I sometimes think I want to be a tiny monkey because I just don't want to be an adult person, with worries, cares and responsibilities. I just want to laugh and play and run around and jump and smile, like I did when I was a child - and naive and innocent and not knowing any better.

Then my teenage years came, and everything got out of control and whatever I lost in the years since then, I can't really get back. I can buy toys. I can goof off. I can yelp "Munkee!" at work.

But that innocence is gone. Whether it left the first time I thought of killing myself, whether it left the first time I had sex, whether it left with Michelle, I don't know. But it's gone. And that's not something you get back.

So I guess I'd better make the most of what I have.

I'm trying. I really am. I got my iPod and my "Star Blazers" DVDs and my special key-making machine.

Now all I need is one bit of good news, and everything will be OK, and I can get on with my resolutions, like getting in shape and learning to scuba dive.

So if you see my smiling, don't think I'm about to kill everyone in the room. I'm not. I'm just trying to enjoy life. Or dreaming of growing a prehensile tail.

(No links down here today. Go check out PostSecret. It's excellent. But depressing.)