Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Happy Jar Starter Kit

Someone sent me a Happy Jar Starter Kit, with instructions. It includes some small slips of paper, folded, that have compliments written on them, and I was to put them in a jar and add to them with my own little slips of paper describing things that make me happy, then at the end of a period of time - a month or a year - I was to open them all and read them... and be made happy.

But purportedly have compliments written on them. What if there are mean things written on them? "Under that awful exterior you're ok sometimes.""You should totally write blogs for a living!" What if there are meaningless things written? "You're great with kids!" "It's great how you like flowers!"

What if the slips of paper are blank?

It's mortifying. I've put them in a jar - an old Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve jar, it's sitting on top of my fridge - and I haven't read any of them, and I haven't added to them. When that month or that year was up, I think it would make me glum to read "The warm sun on my legs as I sit at my computer in my darling little bed-sit, deliciously frittering away a morning" or "Finding an actual Italian card-game iPhone app" or "Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve boom-tish!" And I considered all these, briefly, and they're all true, in their small ways, but it makes me glum to read them even now. And I have a care for my future fragile self.

There's no conclusion to this. Those little bits of paper trouble me when I remember to dust the fridge-top. Here's a picture of them. Can you see the slips of paper? It's hard to make them out, there aren't that many.

Update: OK, so finally posting on this blog has actually made me somewhat... relieved.


2 comments:

  1. Is the jar still on your fridge? I was similarly fearful but it was good in the end. I opened the jar in February while eating pizza and chocolate cake, so that helped. I was very worried that I might have written something about how happy my cello makes me, because my cello is now broken beyond repair. However, luckily, I had not mentioned it. I remembered most of what I had written and some of them made me smile. The one that made me smile the most was something that I had completely forgotten: a dream I had where I found all these boxes containing raspberry plants, throughout my apartment. They were all rich with raspberries. It was such a wonderful dream and as soon as I saw the paper I remembered it and I felt so happy. Don't be afraid of your own happiness, my friend, is my wise conclusion to this comment.

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  2. The jar is still on my fridge. I still haven't written anything. It still has the slips of paper it came with... I just saw "Night of the Demon", I think those slips of paper need to stay in that jar and be buried deep.

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