Who needs a Happy New Year?

He sweeps the confetti from the sidewalk into a dust bin. The empty cup sits in a pool of stale beer. He pushes the collected trash into a heap and tosses it into the dumpster.

“Happy New Year,” he mocks. “Happy Friggin New Year.”

It’s been a tough year. Six months ago, his wife left the keys on the counter along with a note. “I’m finally happy.” 16 years invested and this is the final reward to a relationship. It’s a little strange that one person’s happiness so easily translates into another’s misery.

***

She tosses her hair back and laughs at the silly joke. But when no one looks, she turns her face to the ground and grimaces, biting her lip. There’s pain deep in her heart, but she’s trying not to show. The party rages around her. The libations are flowing. Raising glasses to a toast to happiness, it sure doesn’t feel that way.

***

We are told that happiness is what really counts, even invoking the name of God into the argument. We plunge into affairs, buy new cars, collect shoes, and indulge in substances all in the pursuit of the grail that isn’t so holy in the end.

I have chased happy. You name it, I’ve thought it would fulfill. Sex. Possessions. Relationships. Money. Power. Position. I thought all of them would satisfy, that they would make me happy. But they carved the ravine in my heart deeper still, and the tears could never fill the hole.

We constantly tell ourselves that it’s a love or a relationship that makes us happy, or just a little more money, or a better job. Sometimes it’s a drag, or a sip or two. Sometimes it’s losing ten pounds, or twenty. It can be a vacation or an hour of sheer pleasure. But really, happiness like this really never lasts.

I choose joy.

Joy isn’t dependent on a situation in life. It doesn’t need another person to complete. It’s free and without strings. And best of all, unlike happiness, it doesn’t require detox or botox or lipo in the end.

I don’t have achieve it, earn it or work for it.

At the end of the chase, looking for pots of gold and nirvana and bliss, I wheeze in, breathless and spent.  Joy sits, legs crossed at the end of the path, twirling a piece of grass. “Where have you been?

“The hope of the righteous brings joy” Proverbs