My Journey Back to Happiness

I have a friend named Hector. He came into my life one day as I was perusing Petfinder.com for a feline friend. It was seven months into my first year as a New York City public school teacher when I decided I needed someone small and fuzzy to wait home for me in my Bronx apartment. There were many potential felines to choose from--fat, skinny; long-haired, short haired; spayed, neutered; sad, lonely. Among the photos of kitties squinting in vet's arms and curled up in cages and on tile floors, Hector stood out without even trying. Hector is a Manx, or tailless, cat with large green eyes like a favorite song tinkling over the radio. Feeling alone at my Toshiba, I knew I had to meet him.

In person, Hector was a full out ballad. His story provided the lyrics that could move anyone: his previous owner, a literal rocket scientist, had wanted to put Hector to sleep when he was a kitten. He had an enlarged colon because of his missing tail, and without medication, he would die. When Rocket brought Hector and the vicious request to a compassionate vet in Brooklyn, the doctors refused to let Hector leave the world. They gave him medicine and a home Rocket couldn't provide. Two years later, after living in a cage and courting several potential owners who didn't want to take the chance, I adopted my little man.

This is what makes Hector happy: belly rubs, toy mice, sneaking food, sleeping on my head, running up and down stairs and my new fleece sheets.

Hector pursues what makes him happy every day. Until recently, I was not.

A month ago, I left a teaching job in New York that was quickly killing my spirit. An amazing colleague of mine commented on my unglamorous transformation when I told her I was leaving. We were sitting on the 3 train in East New York, clanking past ornate brick school buildings breathing out noisy school children in after school programs and sleepy teachers. I had told my colleague about my decision to leave, and she was happy for me. "I've seen the change in you, you're happy now," she said with a music in her voice. "I've seen you become a zombie over the past few months, and now you are once again the joyous girl I met in September." She was right: I was indeed happy for the first time in four months. I had chosen the pursuit of happiness, as Jefferson did. Or, as my seventh graders would have remarked, Will Smith.

These are the things that make me happy: Reading good books. Writing lists like this that remind me of Kay Thompson's Eloise. Cooking with my mom. Listening to Adam Lambert. Traveling. Being with people I love. Dressing up to go nowhere. Adventurous bubble baths a la age five. Luxurious, worry-melting baths a la age 24. Living inside my head. Educating myself. Sleeping. Having something to wake up to. My grandmother's stories about her life. Yellow turnips mashed up in a bowl with butter. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda. The poetry in everything. Glee. Kurt Vonnegut. Writing again. Hector.

It may sound absurd to leave a paying job to pursue the things that make you happy, but for me, there was no choice. I found myself floundering in a job where nothing I did was good enough and where kids who I desperately wanted to teach were learning nothing from me. I knew that, for everyone involved, leaving was the only choice. In essence, I chose happiness, something that had been slowly withering away in the background of my life, like unharvested Farmville strawberries after ten hours (yet another new happiness of mine). Like that animated, pigtailed version of myself, I decided to harvest the happiness in my life, as only Hector could show me.

This blog is dedicated to my journey back to happiness, and to my Hector in crime, of course.