The Bottom of the Curve

Great news! Researchers have come up with a new theory of happiness, and it’s an upside down parabola, with middle age right smack at the bottom where it belongs. It’s only gonna get better from here.

Some studies scream with flaws, but this one seems pretty airtight, and there’s no way I’m looking to debunk a hypothesis that has me on the fast track to euphoria. And the article I read was in The Economist; the British sound so intelligent I tend to believe them, no matter what they say. (Really, who else but a Brit could spell “aging” with an “e” and not be subject to ridicule?)

The theory certainly rings true for me so far, especially the part that points to the forties and early fifties as being the peak time of unhappiness. It’s almost making me giddy with excitement about my next birthday (only ten months to go). According to the researchers, happiness goes hand in hand with our physical deterioration; at some point, we simply stop striving for what we haven’t achieved and accept our limitations, realizing time is short and we might as well enjoy ourselves. Sure, having kids leave the nest and having some financial security helps, but it’s more about our physiological and emotional development than anything else.

I’ve never wanted to be someone else – someone younger, or prettier, or smarter, or richer – although I certainly have wished on occasion to not be me. I mean that only in the sense that I regret certain mistakes, and regret having to suffer the consequences of whatever life tosses my way, whether or not I’m at fault. But I’ve never wanted to trade places and become another person; for better or worse, I’ve grown very accustomed to the person I am, and don’t really have the inclination or the energy to get to know someone else. Mrs. Potato Head is here to stay.

When I look at my children and marvel at their youthful glow and their optimism and their bodies that don’t creak and the wealth of opportunities that lay before them, I do so not with envy but with joy mixed with lots of worry. I worry that they will become less youthful (they will), that they will become more jaded (they will), that they will one day suffer aches and pains (they will), and that one day the world will no longer seem to be their oyster (it won’t). They will (I hope) go through the stages of life and experience joy and sadness and success and frustration and the daily ebb and flow of contentment. And all I can do is watch and hope for the best.

At least now, I can reassure them that when the going gets tough, there is a light at the end of the tunnel – although that light seems, well, light years away for them. Only those of us who’vemade it to the bottom of the “u-bend” and beyond know just how quickly time passes.

I probably won’t even have to tell them that things will get better. Within a few years, they’ll be watching me as I swing from the rafters, my ecstasy unfolding before their very eyes, and they’ll get it.