Vol. 134 - What Makes Me Happy?

An oh-so-simple question that became really difficult to answer.

“What makes you happy?”

It was a simple question asked by a friend the other night after we dropped our kids off at a neighborhood movie hang. (It’s also the kind of question grown men should be asking each other more of.)

I was thrown when he asked such a simple question. I mean, it’s easy, right? What makes me happy? It’s a question I should have a readymade answer for.

My kids was my first instinct. But that’s too easy of an answer. Of course my kids make me happy (they also piss me off to no end). But that’s a happiness that’s almost unquantifiable. To put your kids in that category negates everything else that might make you happy. That’s how happy my kids make me. Immeasurably.

It’s also the default right now because my kids are more of less all I know. Only recently, seven years after I first became a father, have a started to rediscover myself as a human being. That is, to embrace the things I love to do, that make me feel whole, that make me happy. Nearly every moment leading up to now has been about them. And that’s fine. That’s great. That’s exactly the job I signed up for.

I don’t regret any moment of those first seven years. Nor would I choose to do it different in any way.

My kids are what make me happy. To wit, I’m writing this on a Monday morning, following a weekend that was, other than a quick thirty-mile bike ride (which takes me about 90 minutes), wholly devoted to my kids. There were little league games and science museums, family bike rides and playgrounds, kid-friendly restaurants and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. It was thirty-six hours for my kids.

And I loved every second of it. Because I love standing on the sidelines, watching my son play little league. I love sitting in our driveway as our daughter makes an incalculable number of circles on her newly beloved pedal bike. I love snuggling on the couch and watching the movies they want to watch. I love making them PB&J sandwiches.

Yet, all of that love has left me far removed from the answer to my friend’s oh-so-simple question: what makes ME happy. Because I haven’t thought about ME in a long, long time.

I considered the question as the night wore on, consciously trying to avoid anything having to do with my kids, and, eventually, came up with a list that looked something like this:

• Riding a bike - There is no joy I feel quite like I feel when I’m riding a bicycle. To quote the late, great Robin Williams, himself a fanatical cyclist, “Riding a bike is the closest we’ll ever feel to flying.” Riding bikes has been a lifelong love, a lifelong journey, and one that has always made me happy (I can also give you a money back guarantee that riding bikes will make YOU happy, too. If you don’t ride, you should. Trust me.)

• Reading - Because if there is one thing I hated about early fatherhood, it’s the way it completely zapped my ability to read, perhaps the only thing I’ve loved in my life for as long as I’ve loved riding bikes. And though I’m hardly back to my old reading self (aka the guy who once put back a book a week), I’m able to get through a book in a reasonable amount of time. A huge coup for Mike the Dad.

• The woods - I feel comfortable in the woods. I feel at home there. Even though I’ve never been much of a camper and consider myself anything but an outdoorsman, the woods feel like they’re a part of me. Probably owing to the fact that I grew up in the Pine Barrens and it’s a place that’s woven into my DNA.

• Cities - If there’s anyplace I feel more at home than in the woods, it’s in cities. Big fucking cities. I’m talking New York, London, Chicago, Rome, Paris. Concrete Jungles. I feel safe in cities. I feel at home there. Probably owing to the fact that I was born in Jersey City and it’s a place that’s woven into my DNA.

• College towns - Something about the eternal optimism and never-aging youth of a college town gives an energy that no other place can quite capture. Also, they’re full of bookish nerds who are my favorite kinds of people.

• Comedy - I grew up in a golden era of comedy. From my earliest years, watching Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield classics, my childhood spent in front of Sandler, Spade, Farley, et al; my young adulthood and the era of Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, and Larry David; and finally my adulthood, where I became an archeologist of comedy, digging into Lenny Bruce, Redd Foxx, even old old schoolers like Henny Youngman and Harry Einstein. Comedy makes me happy. That’s kind of the point, right?

• Cream soda - Whenever anyone asks what my preferred drink is, I instinctively say “cream soda.” I know they mean drink drink. As in, adult drink. As in booze. But I don’t really like alcohol (I like getting fucked up with my friends, but that’s a different story). Cream soda, on the other hand, I love. Cream soda makes me happy.

• Finally, it’s become apparent that, between cities, college towns, comedy, and cream soda, the letter “C” makes me happy. I guess it only makes sense then that “cocksucker” is one of my favorite words. Calling someone a “cocksucker” makes me happy. Ipso facto.

Over the course of the weekend, I thought about the question more. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it in the context of my kids and my role as a father.

Because it’s important for them to know what makes me happy. Not because I want to create good little soldiers whose sole purpose is to keep dad happy. Rather, now that I’m in the business of creating good, kind, content future adults, I want them to understand how to define and make clear their happiness. And I want them to be able to vocalize it, to say, with no uncertainty, “This is a thing that makes me happy.”

Apparently, that’s something I need to do more of.

So to you, dear reader, I pose the same question: What makes you happy? Put it in the comments, send me an email, or just ponder it yourself. But think about it and try to define it. I guarantee it’s going to be harder than you think.

Especially when I tell you that you’re not allowed to say “my kids.”

Because, yeah, no shit.