I discovered one of the grand facets of happiness. For me, at least, it is little wrinkled potatoes.
Wait, let me elaborate.
It was great to fall in love, get married, make love for the first time, etc., etc. But becoming a parent opened another dimension in my heart I never knew existed. Hormones are partly to blame, of course — as they are for most of the paranormal activities in my body and soul.
But there is this supernatural feeling of joy and happiness when you hold your own child that, in my experience, compares to nothing. It’s like magic. You’ve never felt anything like it. And then one day — puh — it overwhelms your every living cell. It’s the most interesting, bizarre, out-of-this-world experience.
I held babies before. I cuddled with them, kissed them, smelled them, wiped their buns. But it’s all nothing compared to the bliss and love you feel when you do all those things with your own children. Even wiping their cute little butts, yes.
How can you explain it? Babies are babies, right? Well, no. It turns out there are babies, and there are your babies.
I remember mentally rolling my heartless eyes when my friends would tell me about how in love they were with their children, how wonderful their children were, how beautiful they were. “The cutest little girl, Tania, isn’t she?”
And because you love your friends, you agree with them and smile while looking at their baby — the little wrinkled potato — and you think, “wow, what really happens in the brain of an adult when they start seeing unspeakable beauty in a little, loud, wrinkled, red crying potato?”
But then I apprehended their folly. I became blind and crazy myself. Crazy in love! Haha!
And I gained so much empathy, understanding, and love towards all my dear friends who came to visit as I held my 3-kilo red potato, kissing and smothering it in unreasonable amounts of gush and mush. And I knew I had real friends when they agreed with me, smiling and nodding at the ridiculous stuff I said about my baby boys.
You do these sorts of things for the people you love. You partake in their version of what happiness is.
Header image by Priscilla Du Preez
