Is that you Happiness, it’s me Amy

 It’s June 2025 and I am on vacation for our annual family vacation to the same spot we’ve been for the last 16 years. 

It’s hotter this year than in years past and this is definitely the summer of nats. Small bugs that dive bomb into your eyes and buzz around your ears in the most incessant way. Some people call them no-see ems. Whatever you call them, they are one of the most annoying things ever and it can be hard to feel an abundance of happiness when you’re trying to be in the moment. 

I have a love/ hate relationship with the word Happiness (and the pursuit thereof). Not that we have unalienable rights to achieve this, but rather that Happiness is actually achievable as an on going feeling. And once achieved, can it be maintained? 

Happiness has 174 synonyms and antonyms according to Merriman Webster’s dictionary. When looked it up I saw Joy was listed first. Happiness is defined as a) a state of well being and contentment: joy. b) a pleasurable or satisfying experience. While Joy is the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires. 

These two things are not the same. They do not mean the same and happiness is a distant synonym from joy. How can we not accurately describe Happiness in 2025?

Could it be because the act of achieving is so far and fleeting that it cannot actually BE achieved, for once achieved it is no longer happiness but enlightenment or contentment, and an on going feeling. 

I am harping. 

Since having a broad range of kids on this vacation we find ourselves asking why can’t we all be happy? 

Marley loves to ride a bike. We’ve worked extensively with Form 5 (a former prosthetic company) that has been designing a mass produced bike adapter that anyone can use. Despite working with them, she does not have an adapter. She does not see herself as someone who needs assistance, and she rarely asked for help. But, for the first time ever she crashed. 

I wasn’t there. My two oldest we riding with her. I guess a family stopped to help her. This morning she bears the scratch and bruise from the hit. I asked her to bike to get coffee with me and reluctantly she said yes. We passed by the spot she hit and the sign, and her bike rattled along as we got there. She says it didn’t sound like that before. Before the crash. I see the fender is bent and catching each time she petals and we stop so I can bend it back. After coffee she says she’s tired and her leg hurts. This is a first. She’s never tired of riding. I watch her as we pedal along and she is hunched over on her right side and only when she sits up and rides one handed does she sit erect and seemed most relaxed. And all I can think, she needs the adapter. 

If she uses the adapter does that mean defeat? 

I ask her if she’s happy and she says yes, but with apprehension I can tell. I ask her if she’s grateful? She says for what, and I ponder what exactly I am asking. I suppose I want to know if she’s grateful to be where she’s at. Has she found joy? 

Who’s to actually say. 

There will be days harder than this. Days to contemplate the real things worth spending time on. This is not one of those days. This is not one of those things. This is easy. 

I sit here with sand in my toes and sunscreen on my skin with one day left before we go home. As I look out into the low crashing waves and surf and feel the sun on my skin I feel a sense of happiness. But try as I may I cannot hold on to this feeling. We will pack up and head home Saturday morning and back to the real world. Back to hard decisions and antonyms of happiness. And I will close my eyes and picture my girl riding beautifully on her bike with her hand by her side and the wind in her hair completely and utterly happy.