Dear PiePie,
How time flies. How quickly I’ve missed many months of writing. It’s been hectic, but I have also not set aside the time. I got Covid at the same time as Yaya a month ago, after Mom had gotten it. All is fine – the severity of the current strain of Covid is lower – but amidst the inconveniences of isolation, it has allowed me to revisit writing and start this note. But I paused as soon as I recovered and returned to the daily grind.
Until now, as you are turning 3. Happy 3rd Birthday! Here’s to 2 years of maintaining this infrequent monologue, and hopefully many more till you’re old enough to read this.
But the note that I started during Covid, which stems from a question I occasionally ask myself, remains apt on your birthday: what would I want to say to you, that I hope you carry with you and remember for the rest of your life?
Remember to Smile.
At the end, what any parent want for their child is happiness. We want, as much as possible, to set you up with a solid-enough emotional, social and intellectual foundation to be as happy as you can possibly be when we are no longer around you.
And it is important to distinguish that while I want you to be happy, I do not believe that I can “give” you happiness. It is a pursuit and a path that you alone will have to find and create. But I will admit that the very first phrase that I thought of, when I pondered the question above, is to tell you to “Be Happy”. That message, I quickly realise, is not very practicable. Sometimes, we just aren’t happy, no matter how much we tell ourselves to be. Smiling, on the other hand, is practicable. You can always choose to smile, however you are feeling.
Remember to smile when you are sad. Not to pretend that you are happy. Not to mask your sadness within. But let the act of smiling remind you that bad times never last, that there are still positives in your world even if you do not see it, that there are always things you can be grateful about even whilst you feel terrible. It’s debated, but I believe smiling can ‘trick’ yourself into being more positive and less stressed, so why not?
But more importantly, remember to smile at random moments when aren’t feeling much of anything. When you are neither sad, nor mad, nor happy or overjoyed. When your emotions are stilled. When there is monotony in your heart. You don’t need a reason to smile. It seems to me that it is precisely the periods when we experience emotional stability, when we neither get up too high nor too low on ourselves, that there is most to smile about (but when we most often forget to). Life doesn’t have to be set on a rollercoaster to be good; there is so, so much to be thankful for and to smile about in the general buzz of going about our daily life. Especially so.
It is discovering a new favourite song that gets stuck in your head, or coming across a drama that you just can’t seem to stop watching. It is having dinner with a group of friends or colleagues, for the fourth time in the same week, or the first time in years. It is someone holding a door open for you, or you giving up your seat to the elderly. It is feeling the cool breeze on your face, or working up a sweat at the gym.
Life never stops. It is hectic and we are always busy. But there is always time to smile, and always something to smile about in your life.
Remember to smile. Happy birthday again.
Love, Dad
PS: There is an NFT that I hope to pass you at some point with this phrase embedded.