Finding your happy place
my happy place
This feeling of almost overwhelming funk. Watching the news certainly hasn’t helped: tragedy both here and abroad and the constant political back biting. It’s exhausting. Plus, I didn’t go to my happy place this year: the beach. Oh, how I love the beach. But alas, our schedules did not permit such a getaway this year. It’s all left me feeling unrested and restless.
I thought it was just me. But it’s not. I’ve talked to several people who seem to be stuck in a similar funk. Just knowing I’m not alone helped lighten the weight a little.
There are plenty of folks much smarter and wiser than I whom you can turn to for advice. Many will tell you to pray and read scripture, and I’d be the first to agree that those two actions may do you a world of good.
But sometimes you need an immediate anti-funk injection.
And I discovered one quite by accident this afternoon. It worked for me, and I’m hoping it may work for you, too:
Think of a song from your youth.
A song that the 13-year old you would sing loudly and with absolute abandon.
Download it to your iPod or find the CD or whatever.
Get in your car, put on your sunglasses (even at night).
Play that song loudly.
Sing it ever louder. I mean, belt that sucker OUT!
When you get to a stop light, play air guitar. If you draw attention to yourself, all the better.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Will this little mini concert make the world a little less ugly? Probably not.
Is it a long term solution to your heavy heart? Most probably not.
But maybe, just maybe.
It will help you realize what I did.
That buried beneath all that heaviness we all tend to carry all too often,
there is joy.
We just need a little help finding it sometimes.
*Editor’s Note: The above video is the medley I stumbled upon this afternoon. And while I’ll admit that the 13-year old me was a big Journey fan, it could have been any number of belt-worthy songs.
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Wow. Neil Schon is rocking quite an afro…
katdish´s last [type] ..Finding your happy place
I always turn my radio down when I get to the neighborhood. Maybe I should turn it back up?!! This is great, simple idea. Love it.
Bethany Austin Smith´s last [type] ..Fear Says
The hair at 2:18 is incredible. I miss the 70′s!
On an unrelated note: Don’t you live, like, an hour from a beach? I mean, I know Galveston’s not great compared to other beaches, but still…
James Williams´s last [type] ..Review: The Beauty Book, by Nancy Rue
Yes, James. I know. It is only an hour away. It’s just making up my mind to go down there. I know I need to do so.
katdish´s last [type] ..Finding your happy place
I guess the Afro look is not for a man who’s going bold. Oh, well. One less thing to be happy about. But then who gives a whisker. In reality, though, sometimes it’s difficult to find a spare ten or twenty minutes much less an entire hour just laying around on the floor. And you know an hour is never enough. Once the fun kicks in, you just can’t stop until the sun goes down. Happy summer to all!
Funny, I do that a couple nights a week and just did it today with my wife and little one in the car… The little one is getting very good at rolling her eyes…
Maybe I should have picked something other than Thompson Twins?
Great minds think alike… To borrow a phrase from a famous author, “You’re welcome, I’m sorry!” or something like that…
floyd´s last [type] ..MY DAD
I was at a stop light in Baton Rouge and looked over to see a truck load of boys, sleeveless, tanned, rocking to a summer’s tune. And for a brief moment it made me smile. Summer days, riding with the girlfriends, listening to Elton John, or Chicago. That was a kind of freedom that I rarely know anymore. I’m taking a book and going to sit in the white wicker rocker this afternoon. With a glass of iced tea of course.
karenzach´s last [type] ..Looky-See
I do this sometimes! And I miss the beach, too. I love all the beaches, excepting the cold ones. Nobody likes them. I love picking out the tackiest, most one-hit wonder-ish, wretched music possible. I have a playlist of it on my phone, because it really does something when blasting it on the way to work. Here’s to hoping you get out of it and that the beach and you get some time together soon.
jake´s last [type] ..Tradition
Your picture makes me think of the vacation we just returned from. Definitely anti-funk.
And it was nice to be so removed from the news and everything that just seems to suck you down into the muck!
OOOOOOOOOOOO ANY TIME THAT YOU WANT ME! OOOOOOOOOO ANYTIME THAT YOU WANT ME, TOO….. OOOOOOOOOOO ANY TIME THAT YOU NEED ME!
You are right! That does feel good!
Helen´s last [type] ..Voice in My Head