i wanted to write something happy

on "diva time" and taking life less seriously

I decided I wanted to be happy today. I forget that sometimes you do get to choose. I put on my headphones and listened to Marina and the Diamonds and created elaborate embarrassing Mirror Ball worthy dance routines in my kitchen. My sister recently introduced me to a practice she refers to as “Diva Time”. Diva Time is where you listen to diva music and do diva things like dance or put on makeup or wash your face, or like, I don’t know, anything. You just have to be a diva. I chose to listen to Marina because she is the original diva to me. She’s the hottest person I can think of. She is the blueprint. She is that bitch. I decided to start my day with diva time and I cannot recommend it enough.

I said I wanted to write something happy today. Writing sad things is easy, love songs, ballads, Greek tragedies, but it is so much harder to write about something happy. If you’re me, at least. I would be willing to bet a lot of us here do spend a lot of time licking their wounds. Holding hands with their hurt. Confusion. Pain. Longing. Loss. It rolls off the tongue. It’s so much harder to dig in my brain and find the shiny rock of happy thoughts buried in piles of dirt. I’m doing it right now. I’m making this sound more dramatic than it is. I’m a drama queen, it’s what I do.

I said I wanted to write something happy so here it is: I want to be silly. I think that word is cringe. Silly goose sends shivers down my spine. But I want it. I want life to be more fun, light hearted, stupid, and some other fourth synonym. If my life were a movie, I would want it to be more like Superbad, less like The Perks of Being a Wallflower. All my favorite movies are sad ones. Or at least, melancholy. Perks, Ladybird, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (kind of), The Spectacular Now. I want to flip the script. Romeo and Juliet can be a comedy if you just change the tone. I want to make my time on earth stupider. I put on this persona of a deep serious intellect, a stoned philosopher, a sad, sad, loner, a misunderstood underdog, but it gets old. And boring. And it’s not even that true. It’s monotonous. I want life to be more random XD and lolz and lmfao. I’m sexy and I know it.

I said I wanted to write something happy today. So I did. I wrote it down in the form of a list, or a poem- what’s really the difference? I call everything a poem. I don’t count syllables, I don’t really keep a rhythm, it doesn’t flow off the tongue. This is a poem. Who fucking cares? I used to love Shel Silverstein. I guess I still do. I still have the same old copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up on my shelf. They lost their white dust jackets a long time ago, but I like them better this way. I would stare at those books for hours. I fucking loved his illustrations. I loved how stupid his poems were. But they were heartfelt. I felt it.

I want to give myself permission to be silly

I want to live a more adventurous life

I want to go more places

I want to be more things

A dancer

A painter

A piano player

A writer

A talker

A midnight dog walker

I want to be adored

I want to be hated

I want to go camping

I want to swim in clear water

I want to cut off all my hair

I want to feel the fucking breeze on my face

I want to take risks

I want to love deeper

I want to say yes

Over and over

I want to scream it

I want to go crazy

I want to see rainbows

I want to believe in Bigfoot

And magic

I want to be funny

I want to laugh

Over and over

Until my lungs hurt

I want to lose brain cells

Please fucking take them

I want to be stupid

And I want to pretend

I want to play dress up

I want to be mermaids

I want to believe in Santa again

I want to be kind to the world again

I want to take candy from strangers

On the greyhound bus

I want to get lost

And ask for directions

I want to pull over

See the largest ball of twine

I want to smell roses

I want to drink wine

I want betrayal

I want action

And romance

I want it all

I want to play music

I want to have fun

I want trampolines

and swimming pools

I want barbecue

and potluck dinner

I want to watch sunrises

I want to meet strangers

I want everything

Maybe there’s no bigger purpose

Maybe it’s not that deep

Maybe there’s no hidden meaning

Just enjoy the ride