Happy Endings

Tonight as I was lounging around after eating a hearty “traditional meal” (steak, potatoes, and something green) with my family, I recalled an event that occurred sometime around the time I was ten or so. It was a summer evening, just after supper, at my grandparent’s house. My Grandfather and I were sitting on the back stoop listening to crickets and pondering the growth of grass as our stomachs digested my grandmother’s cooking.
There was minimal conversation, as there ever is after such meals. After fifteen minutes of this my Grandfather interrupted the silence with a hacking cough. It was one of those terrible smoker's coughs that come after too many years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
With tears rolling in his eyes from pain he looked at me and tried to smile. He could probably see the worry on my face. Before I could warn him of the dangers of smoking, the ones I learned in school, he decided to cut me off and teach me one of his many life lessons instead. I could tell it was coming just by the curl of the right of his lip before he smiled. His eyes would smugly set on the horizon just as he always would start off, "Listen young man, did you know..."
Like most things out of my grandfather’s mouth, this lesson was nothing short of crude. It was and is the reason I looked up to that old man. His crotchety old mouth always taught me such colorful words and phrases I could never hear at home. And what ten year old boy didn’t want to be the first to use such rude banter at school? What glories were brought to the kid who taught the others, as they gathered around in the back of the school bus, the naughty new things they can call each other? Lord knows I did.
That night, my grandpa decided to vulgarly compare life and living it to the act of having sex. A subject somewhat taboo to a ten year old, but something still which was magically drawing and elusive just a boy just the same. My ears perked right up, and I can even remember how I nervously leaned in. Here it was. Finally, here was an adult who was going to let on to one of the basic secrets shared within the hallowed halls of manhood. Someone was finally going to indulge me with what it was all about, with the only subject that the other boys at school seemed to surpass my knowledge on.
He started off saying bluntly, and right to the point, that he knew those who took to life like they did a loose woman, giving it to her hard and finishing so very quickly. Of course, with this, I was totally confused and didn't know where he was going at the time. Then he said, much like the above, that there were those who took it easy and made sweet love to that woman the whole night through. Of these two, Grandpa would said the latter had it right and one should always strive to be that guy. Finally, after he inhaled the rest of his smoke, smudged it out on the arm of the wooden patio lounge chair, and concluded his crude metaphor by saying that there were those who lived life like prison inmates. He told me that these guys always settling to take it up the rear. “Don’t be an ass fucked queer…” he’d say, “don’t let no one stick it to you—or in you for that matter…”
I blushed and laughed awkwardly at this, embarrassed for the both of us, though hardly knowing exactly what he meant. And then he was quite for the rest of the evening as he let the bottle take a sip of him now and again.
Now that I look back upon it, I guess in a way he was correct, especially since I do know of what he means. Yet, I don’t think that it is so cut and dry like he believed it to be. I think, like all things, that life is greyer than black and white (like my grandfather believed everything to be).
Life and those who live it do not always play specific roles. Collectively, we all take our share of being screwed and screwing. We take things fast and hard and sometimes we take it slow and easy. For the most part, since everything is principled on the balance and moderation of things (such as diets, alcohol, and just about all things), I think life can, and should be, the same.
Let’s not compare life then so crudely as my grandfather did to sex, but instead a relationship. A healthy relationship is where both partners give and take with equality. It is a relationship of sacrifice on both fronts. So, to speak as rude as my Grandfather once did, it is sometimes taking the screwing, as in other times, it is the giving of it.
For the most part, I think that’s true with life. Without the unhappy parts (the getting screwed) how would, could, we ever appreciate the happy parts of life (screwing???). We couldn’t, plain and simple. It’s not I think—therefore I am, but I feel—therefore I am. And without a feeling to compare and contrast upon, one feeling is just not enough to sustain a healthy livelihood. After all, there are those who have it all, taking life by the horns and all that, who are successful, who are not happy. Just like there are those which are raped by life cruelly, who equally do not enjoy it. They are just two differing variants of un-enjoyment. Those who live mathematically meanly will probably get the most out of life, because as bad as it can get, we must still appreciate, learn, and perhaps laugh upon later, the bad stretches (no matter how awful) in our lives. No matter what, at the end of life, unlike with some sexual partners, we still get to finish, no matter how beautiful, exhilarating, lame, or awkward that life might have been. There will be Happy Endings for all… I promise…