Happiest Moment in 5 Minutes or Less

The premise of this post is yesterday’s Facebook status update (this reminds me of Mr. A, my 7^th grade social studies teacher, who criminally taught his students to write “The purpose of this essay is…”):

So this morning on the way to school, my eldest child (age 12) asks, "Mom, what was the happiest moment of your life?" YOU try answering that question on a 5-minute drive before 7 a.m. ... before coffee!

SF responded: So? What did you say?

LB: "Right now. Because you cared enough to ask." That would have stopped her in her tracks ;-)

BE: Too many to choose just one? : )

First, I told Viv that I would probably need a full week to ponder all the possibilities (including in my ponderings the definition of the word happiest, as compared to most relieved, excited, elated, joyous, etc.) before I could determine how best to answer the question.

Then, I said that of course there are the obvious times: Our wedding day, the birth day of each child, the day I got my braces off…

But, to satisfy my daughter’s query, I came up with this one, top of mind:

Viv was about 2 years old, and I was utterly overwhelmed by life. I was working full time, enrolled in grad school full time, and still foolishly attempting to fit into my mental mold of what an All-American wife/mom/superwoman should be like.

image from mommytracked.com

After many months of trying to juggle it all, and several weeks of crying myself to sleep each night, I went to my boss and said: “Look, I can’t do this anymore. I need to try something different. Could I possibly cut back my hours, just temporarily, until I can catch up?” My speech was longer than that, and delivered with extreme care — mainly because of the tremendous effort required to prevent myself from breaking down into tears, but also because I still needed the job. I was, after all, the main breadwinner of the family, and we were thoroughly invested in that community, 30-year mortgage and all.

My boss was a man who had juggled and accomplished a great deal in his life, even though he himself was still quite young. He listened very intently (likely also willing me to spare him the discomfort of a weeping woman in his office) and then said this: “Finish out your current project and then take six weeks off. Come in once a week to check email and take care of any necessary correspondence. But your main task for the time off is to get back on track and return a healthy, happy employee.”

He stopped short of urging me to see a physician for clinical depression — advice I also needed at the time. But a friend pointed me in that direction not long after this “happiest moment.”

That night, I went to sleep smiling. Reflecting on it, I remember the saying: “Always be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle” (which, based on my Internet research just now, appears to be an amalgamation of sayings from Plato and the man who invented Peter Pan). 

Most of us don’t have the power to grant a stressed-out person a 6-week leave of absence. But we do have the power to be kind in lots of little ways, which can make a huge difference in the bear-ability of others’ everyday lives…and our own.

So, that’s my “Happiest Moment in 5 Minutes or Less” What’s yours?