I love you. I need you. You are the best. Thank you for being you.

I love.

Perhaps it is all the "good" sermons I have listened to. Perhaps it is found somewhere in my upbringing. Maybe from cancer or maybe from failures. Maybe from victories and abundance.

Maybe just from plain old "how people treat me". You see I am a really nice guy. No I am not a little pushover pacifist. To many I am rude and aloof, but that is generally from people who want something from me, like money. And to others I am an aggressive advocate. My "homeless" buddies nicknamed me "Eric the Derrick". Some crazy notion about lifting something up.

My loves call me "E". Some crazy notion about everlasting -- boring. My kids call me "dad" something about always loving them.

I have a friend here called ATM. I love him and it drives his cold heart crazy. My oldest brother just cringes at the sight of me, because he does not like my hugs and joyous and free and loving nature --- he looks and acts like a grumpy old man.

But to be fair both of these gentlemen deny being angry. I do not know how that works. How does one make their words sound angry, their face in a constant scowl, really tense body language and slamming things around and yet be happy? I mean I can fake it for a little bit, but the conflict would just plain wear me out.

Here is an interesting tid bit. When I was younger I was a brawler. I fought a whole lot. At some point I realized that if I was all mad when I got in a fight. I could not fight worth a darn. No after sometime spent in martial arts and boxing I get it. We just do not function as well when we are mad as compared to happy. And that even goes to things we normally associate with anger.

I heard a preacher lady on the radio the other day. She said we should smile like little children. Well I got a chuckle. I smile a lot more than most little children I know.

Let me tell you a funny story about smiling. This was back when I was about 20 years old. My elder middle sister was getting married. Her husband was a best buddy of mine. A really good guy right up to when he passed on. Well my sister insisted on getting married on our family land. Which in fact meant my mom was putting on a wedding. Just a small get together of about 200 folks. The land is just beautiful and we worked a few days every week for a couple of months making it more special. There are six of us "adult" children and we already had a couple of spouses so we really could do a lot of work. Everything from food to music to flowers to seating was arranged and ready.

Well like most well planned events. Something had to go cockeyed. So of course it sprinkled a little rain in the morning and it look like a big storm by wedding time. We hopped on it and put up party tents. We were really ready for two hundred with rain.

And here is where the smile came in. Mom was standing off alone. She was in a state of anger and anxiety. Of course it was about the rain. I walked up and told her how beautiful she looked and how we were ready for the rain and that things would be just great and I smiled a big smile. Well my mom somehow got the drop on me and slapped me so hard my neck hurt.

Sometimes a happy cheery face is not what someone wants to see and be around. Sometimes people want to be angry and upset.

It was a good lesson. Now I make sure around my wife to look concerned when things are tense, even though I am smiling on the inside.

Happiness is sometimes just where we have a habit of going. Loving life might even sometimes seemed fake or unreal.

I think I was depressed this morning. I got up before the break of dawn as usual. But I went back to bed. And as is my want I started counting blessings. It did not take long and the depression began to lift. But I stayed in bed. Not good because my mind went back to darker thoughts. I had to get up and get going and focus on the good stuff. Well as you can see here -- that did not work out so well as I just wrote a lousy article ;-)

But I did say to self: "self perhaps you do not love yourself too much this morning but it is still your job to love someone else". And you know what that made all the difference in my day.

Sometimes when I walk down the street I see people with a kind of ugly look on their face. I used to say to myself -- geez buddy cheer up. Then one day I was very sick and had to go to the store to get medicine. I felt like crap. But I realized that I looked real cheery with the pharmacist. It did not really hit me at the time, but she was looking strange at me. You see she knew how lousy I must have been feeling because of the medication she was giving me. But there I was hiding it. Now I just think of poor people who look all grumpy and realize they might really be suffering.

So let me tell you a little somethin somethin.

My boy and his momma are still fast asleep. Nobody is up to love.

But here you are, out there someplace for me to love. Thank you very much. I love you. If you are grumpy right now be happy because I love you. Please do not come through my machine here and slap me. But I am smiling. And I hope you are also.

It would probably be a good idea for you to stop reading my stuff right now and get off to work. But I hope you can take a little piece of me with you on this Monday morning or maybe just put me in your coffee and smile. I would like that very much.

I have to admit, I am lousy at teaching anger. Poor kid will have to learn it from his mom. And she is bad at it also. Maybe school teachers and "friends" will teach him how to get real mad. I already taught him how to make angry faces in the mirror, but that just gets him laughing.

Oh well I can't be good at everything.

Strange it seems like getting angry is normal and just a part of being human. But maybe not. Well now I am wondering if being happy is normal and just a part of being human. But maybe not. I was always laughed at by my siblings because my first word was "No". They made cracks about me always arguing. But one day it hit me. They should have felt bad. Why you ask? Because they taught me my first word. Shouldn't they have taught me "yes".