An unstated number of days ago, I heard something kinda disturbing. Nothing that affects me. Not directly anyway. But there will surely be an effect on one of my friends. And then there'll be a sort of a ricochet, and that's what will hit me. Right square in the nuts.

Ouch.

So I've got two choices.

One, I could say nothing to my friend. Hope that, when she inevitably finds out, that it won't be that big of a deal.

Two, I could tell her, and then try to steel myself for the backlash, but hope that my honesty garners me some tiny bit of respect. Some flimsy wall of protection.

Right. Like that would ever happen.

I think that I'll go with option one.

When in doubt, do nothing.

Man, I should put that on a t-shirt.

---

Now, I get to smile again. Probably for about a week, if the recent past is any useful indication. And I'm not sure if it is or not. It is, after all, recent. And what are a couple of months when compared to the years that preceded them?

So I've been happy for almost two months now. In a couple of days it will be exactly two months, as of this writing. For all that time, I've been happy, but I haven't always been smiling. Smiling takes something more than happiness, for me.

The nice thing about being happy is that it's such a short distance from there to an even better place. From happy to joyful is a distance measured in tiny things.

Well today, a teeny tiny thing happened. And joy washed over me. And I smiled. And I'll probably keep smiling.

For about a week.