Happiness is a Choice

My social worker’s waiting area is very tasteful. Lot’s of nice white easy chairs and a complimentary coffee station with real cream. My social worker is very tasteful too. I met her once back in August, when I didn’t have a lot to talk about and I liked her very much. Mostly, we discussed Dancing With the Stars.

Since then, I’ve only taken advantage of a few other ‘Princess Margaret Survivorship’ services. Two of the group classes, Therapy and Nutrition, ended quite badly and I never returned. The  ‘Chemo Q & A’ was quite informative, but not as much fun as the ‘Look Good Feel Good’, where I got free stuff.  And as far as the offered Drumming, Reiki, and Journaling,  I hope never to find out. So electing for a bit of one-on-one time, I chose to see my social worker for a second time.

I sunk into white chair and looked around the room. There were two smartly dressed ladies sitting opposite me. They both had very short hair that looked brand new, soft, and optimistic. On the table was a little bowl of chocolates and the receptionist had some tinsel on the computer. Christmas music came over the loudspeaker. The receptionist brought over a clipboard for me, which had a long questionnaire. On it were about 50 questions, which I had to answer on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 5 (quite a bit). Amongst the questions were, ‘Do you have feelings of Depression?’, ‘Do you feel like your life is full?’ ‘Do you think about death?’.

So I answered them all pretty much the same way I answered all my multiple choice tests in high school.  Everything got a 3. Also, being a Libran I can never decide if I’m depressed or not, so I just left that question blank. I sailed through it till I got to a few hard hitting questions. Is your life as productive as you would like? (3), Are you enjoying your life (3), Are you excercising (3, for now).

Then came 'Are you happy?'. I looked at the ladies who were sipping coffee and concentrating on the questionnaire in the manner of the very self-assured. Obviously, they were giving their questions some thought. Then I noticed the music. From the loudspeaker came the jolly sounds of, ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’.

……With the kids jingle belling

And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Then I looked back of the questionnaire , ‘Are you happy?’. Then more music…

…. It’s the hap-happiest season of all

With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings

When friends come to call...

So I decided to just to finally take a stand. If people are telling me to ‘be of good cheer’, I would. Oprah has been saying the same thing for years.; ‘Happiness is a Choice’. Eyelashes are irrelevant. Gay happy meetings are where it's at. So for ‘Depressed’ I fiiled out 0, and for ‘Happy’ I filled out 5.

And then I smiled at the ladies and went in to ask my social worker how she felt about the finale of Dancing with the Stars.