Sunday, March 5, 2017

Inappropriate Happiness

As previously mentioned, my friend Lyn and I went to see My Fair Lady at the theater recently.

My Fair Lady is three and a half hours long, a previously unknown fact that required us to order two drinks at a time in order to cope with the thought. We were also the youngest (and hottest) by a solid 20 years, just to set the scene for you in terms of nightlife and expectations of behavior.

She had a mysterious case of hives and was on a cocktail of medication, coffee, and champagne. I was just my current sad self trying to be decent company.

I slid down into my seat as soon as we got through the gauntlet of disapproving ushers who think 5 minutes early is late and two drinks at once is too many and succumbed to sleep, openly and without shame before the end of the first act, rousing only to sleepily join in on the occasional round of applause before sinking back into it contentedly.

I woke with a start at everyone laughing at something that wasn't very funny, the kind of polite laughter the audience supplies because the script calls for it, and noticed Lyn was cracking up as everyone else trailed off into the return to silence. I turned in my seat to look at her, confused and tired, and she was shaking with laughter, hand over her mouth, eyes filling with tears. No one else was laughing now.

"You're high on Prednisone. It wasn't funny," I whispered, kind of incredulous at her reaction, starting to chuckle at the shrill nature of her laugh and realizing it was going to get embarrassing within seconds.

Her laughter took on a truly hysterical quality when our eyes met -- in the old fashioned sense of the word -- a sobbing, out of control, breathless sound of pure joy and insanity.

Which made me laugh in a way I didn't see coming, resulting in a loud snort which made us collapse against each other and choke with laughter while hissing at each other to stop, calm down this second, because everyone was looking, and then the other one would go I know, I know, for real, yes, let's stop, and we'd continue to laugh.

And when we calmed down, I fell back asleep.

It was so rude, so unfortunate for the other theater goers, but damn did I need that moment of out of control happiness. I mean, they had 3 hours and 27 minutes of silence from me, it's fine.

"You're covered in hives and I'm going to die alone, but come look happy for Instagram," I told her as we took a selfie afterwards.

And we were happy and having fun, in spite of being uncomfortable inside and out.

I'm cat sitting for a friend this weekend and imagine if Tom Hanks from Big was a recently separated crazy cat lady because it's going a lot like that. I'm jumping on their trampoline and playing their video games and riding a butt scooter thing in circles across their huge living room and singing love songs to their cat and having a whole lot of fun doing nothing and napping.

And realizing that it's easier to find comfort and joy when you don't have expectations of how something will or should be -- from a night at the theater to life in general. It just is what it is (the laziest phrase in the English language) and the work might just be in making the best of it regardless.


Renee said...

My life philosophy is basically "it is what it is" (with a little bit of that old "progressy, hopey, faithy" thing thrown in on occasion). So that line definitely spoke to me.

short and sharp said...

Oh my god Ashley I love you hahaha never stop writing.

Mary said...

I saved your teapot post the other day because it resonated so much with me, and what I'm going through right now. Now I'm reading your most recent posts and am struck by how well your writings fit my emotions and experiences. So thank you. I hope you continue to write about what you're going through, for yourself and for all of us who are going through something similar. I really do appreciate it.