“I like her. She’s always happy”
Photo of author, taken by Monica Pronk Photography - featuring Contessa Volpi Swimwear.
“I like her. She’s always happy”
What a lovely thing to say about someone. To be perceived as always happy feels like a compliment, doesn't it? Even if it’s based on such a small glimpse of who a person really is.
Someone said it to me recently about a person we both know, and for reasons I couldn't explain at the time, the comment lodged itself uncomfortably under my skin. By bedtime, I’d carried it with me. Lying awake in the dark, I’d turned an innocent observation into a story about myself.
Not because there’s anything wrong with being happy. Don’t we all want to feel happy??
It was the unsaid expectation hidden beneath the comment that troubled me. The familiar story my mind has absorbed over a lifetime:
People like you best when you’re pleasant. Calm. Agreeable. Smiling. Not too emotional. Not too tired. Not too overwhelmed.
Somewhere along the way, I’d absorbed the idea that happy was the highest virtue.
Maybe that's why, when I’m struggling, my instinct is often to retreat into myself. To swallow my words when someone has upset me instead of saying so. To keep to myself rather than ask for support when life feels heavy.
It’s a strange expectation to place on any human being.
Especially women, mothers; who are so often carrying far more than anyone can reasonably see.
Halfway through my spiral, I realised what I’d done. I’d made someone else's innocent comment mean something about me.
The truth is, I’m not always happy.
I’m also not proud of every reaction I have.
I lose my patience. I go quiet and stonewall the people I love. I swear under my breath while searching for the Airpods I definitely didn't put back where they belong.
Sometimes I’m overstimulated. Sometimes I’m exhausted. Sometimes I simply need a holiday… and perhaps twenty thousand dollars.
Somedays I manage my emotions well and other days, I don’t.
Yet, as I lay there replaying the conversation, another thought surfaced.
What if the person who made the comment genuinely believes people should always be happy?
Then, an even more uncomfortable thought arrived –
What if I accidentally give my son that same message?
One of my seven-year-old twins is autistic and has ADHD. He feels everything acutely. His emotions are big, immediate and all-consuming. And if I’m honest, there have been plenty of moments when my instinct has been to say, “Shhh,” or “Calm down,” or “Stop yelling!”
Not because I don’t care what he’s feeling – because when you’re already overwhelmed yourself – as many parents are – someone else's big emotions can feel impossible to hold alongside your own.
But lying there in the dark, another question landed.
What if my son feels like I only love him when he’s calm and happy?
Because, that thought broke my heart.
I know what it feels like to wonder whether people only like the easy, pleasant version of you. To feel as though parts of yourself are welcome, while other parts should stay hidden.
I never want that to be my son’s experience of me. So, I’ve decided that next time he has a hard moment, instead of rushing to make the feelings stop, I want to communicate something far more important. That all of his emotions are welcome.
That he doesn't have to earn my love by becoming calm as quickly as possible. And that we’ll work through the hard moments together.
As for me, I realised something else –
The very fact that I was lying awake at eleven o’clock at night replaying the conversation, questioning my own reactions and wondering how they might shape my children is probably the reason nobody would describe me as someone who’s “always happy.”
But, that’s okay.
Maybe I’d rather be known as someone who reflects. Someone who apologises when she gets it wrong. Someone who’s still learning.
More than anything, I hope my boys grow up knowing that home is the place where they never have to perform happiness in order to be loved. Because, if they know that, I think they’ll be just fine. And I will learn to be too.
