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My mom texted me last weekend and told me that I should write a “happy story”. Just reading that message made me audibly laugh (pfffffff!), for two reasons.

The first reason is that the subtext of that text is that my stories aren’t happy. Are they sad? This had me questioning myself! Ever since I was a kid, I tried to write plot twists and lots of hidden drama between the characters. Even now, I try to white girl M. Night Shyamalan all of my endings. I guess I never realized that most of my stories aren’t traditionally “happy” ones. Interesting.

The second reason her text made me chuckle, is because it’s such a MOM thing to say. Why don’t you relax more? Why do you worry so much? You should write a happy story! Ah yes, why haven’t I thought of this. You know I didn’t trust you when you told me I should bring a light jacket, and you telling me to calm down that one time definitely didn’t work, but something about this one makes more sense.

My mom and I don’t text as much as I’d like. She lives far away from me and I don’t get to see her often either. If it were up to me we would live in the same city and she would french braid my hair every morning, but she can’t, so we settle for a few chats a month. When we do actually text, it’s usually one sentence at a time. “Stay safe” is the one we use most often. But there are also random gems like these.

Riveting content, I know, but this is our love language. We make sure we are fed, entertained, and happy.
Our other love language is humor. I got my humor from my mom. She’s funny, but not in the typical mom way. My mom kills it in the meme game.
While I am spewing every opinion I have on Facebook or indulging in depressing news stories that give me anxiety, my mom reposts funny memes. That’s all she does online. My mom reposts memes. Good ones. Funny ones. Heartwarming and happy-cry inducing memes. Her profile photo is her wearing a sombrero on her birthday, tequila in hand, and her most recent meme is about how baby stingrays look like mini ravioli. If I scroll down farther, I’ll get stuck looking at her reposts for an hour.

I’ve had an emotionally terrible few months, and I’d like nothing more than to write some really weird stories. However, watching my mom see the glass half full, and post these little uplifting and hilarious things each day makes me smile, and makes me want to write a happy story. So here it is. It’s short:

Once upon a time there was a mom who had been though some stuff. As had her daughter, and probably 97% of the world. (New Zealand seems to be doing just fine.) Every day when the daughter was feeling blue, she would accidentally scroll past the ridiculous things her mom posted online, and it would make her smile. She realized that people wouldn’t be able to enjoy any story unless there was a mix of good and bad in it. We need it both emotions. There is no story that doesn’t have some sort of setback, even the happy ones. We need the setbacks to recognize the growth of a character and that the ending was happy. And THAT made her happy—to realize she was only in the middle of her own story.

The end.

How’s that, mom?