if you're happy and not involuntarily squawking like a chicken, clap your hands

Yesterday, I had a check-up at my doctor's office. Shamefully, it had been a few years since my last check-up, so when my doctor walked in, she suggested a full work-up, to make up for the lost time. (I also suspect that I'm at an age when doctors start looking for body parts to start falling off, so her enthusiasm might have been rooted in the hope of finding something interesting since my last visit).

She did the usual things: she took my temperature (normal) and my blood pressure (also normal), and then proceeded to ask me every single question that could be possibly asked a patient. It started innocuously enough: "Do you get headaches?" "Do you have trouble sleeping?" Then she got a bit more serious: "Any unexplained rashes?" "Any weird moles that change appearance?" And by the time she got to question 30 or so, things were decidedly more intense: "Do you have unexplained bleeding?" "Do you ever lose all feeling in your extremities?" "Do your eyeballs suddenly bulge out of your head, only to pop back in by themselves?"

(I might be exaggerating a bit. But not much.)

At first I was a little alarmed by the questions, but as I continued to answer them in the negative, I was starting to feel exceptionally healthy, and by the end of the examination, I was thinking that perhaps I was a bit of a 40-something badass. Of course, I'm still waiting on the results of some blood work, so nothing is certain; also, I know all too well that your health can turn on a dime. But as I walked out of the doctor's office, I felt great.

I want to enjoy this for a moment, I thought to myself. I want to enjoy this moment of feeling good.

I have a trip coming up next week, and I'm going to be taking a camera that I haven't used in a while. So yesterday evening, hours after my doctor's visit, I told Alex I was going to go outside and look for something to photograph, so I could practice. She followed me out.

"You know," I smiled, "since you're out here, I'm going to make you pose for me."

"That's fine," she said, and proceeded to jump as high as she could.

I pointed my camera at her and started shooting, thrilled at her spontaneous exuberance. I need to take a lesson from this, I thought. I need to take the time to notice happy.