There was a time, or so we would like to think, when things were not so complicated. Eventually, we realise the simplicities of a more straightforward past are mostly illusions caused by the mind filtering out the awkward times that don't fit our golden memories. However, there is still this feeling there must have been a time better than this.
Of course, religions have taken such myths and – as usual – used them for their own ends, to speak of times before it was all ruined, of a Golden Age, of a time without sin and all such nonsenses. We would still like to believe in, even though we know such belief is only for those who look without seeing.
Marie knew too, that our own Golden Age was a creation of us looking back on certain selected instances. She still liked to think there had been a time when we were happier, even though happiness is such a nebulous concept, something that disappears like a magician's trick whenever you try to take hold of it. Nevertheless, she was still sure we were happy once.
Me? I don't know. I've never been that sure about happiness, what it is... or even if it is that desirable. Not that I prefer being unhappy, of course. Although, I suspect the puritan inside us all gets some sort of perverse pleasure from the denial of happiness, especially to those whom we believe have been dealt a better hand than us in this game of life.
Where I did agree with Marie was that you find happiness only when you do not realise it, discovered in retrospect when you look back. Trying to be happy in the future – to me, anyway – always seemed doomed to failure, as the future is something that lies always just beyond the grasp, something to reach for but never obtain. To me, happiness is in the places where you do not expect to find it, like a kiss in the middle of a rainstorm, or sunlight breaking free of a dull cloudy day. Moments, in other words, when the ordinary became – if only for an instant – extraordinary, like that smile Marie gave me after we kissed in the rain.
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