Ann Guo
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
And I can tell you from personal experience that it's a load of crap. The depression lasts around two years or so, but it's not like after two years of darkness, I wake up the next morning and win the lottery. And the happiness and joy from winning the lottery fills up that big emotional deficit from the last two years. Instead, I'm dragging around this deficit, this huge burden, everywhere I go.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
And anytime I have a bad day and I'm feeling a little down, I would worry, maybe it's coming back. Overall, life just felt kind of flat. And I couldn't help but wonder, is this my new normal? Will I ever be as happy as I once was? Now, by the time my son turned five, I said, all right, enough is enough. I'm going to have to do something about this.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
In fact, I'm going to print my own winning lottery ticket. It's going to be something that brings me so much joy and happiness, it'll fill up my emotional bank. Now, what could that thing be, though? I figured I'll look to my past for some clues. So I sat down at my kitchen table and made a list of all the most joyful moments in my life.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
And I look at it, and a lot of them involve going on silly adventures. So I said, all right, if that's what it takes to get back to tip-top shape, so be it. I declare the year 2014 to be the year of adventures, where once a month, I will make time and go on an adventure.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
And to help me come up with ideas, and also to help hold me accountable, I sent a mass email to family and friends, making them a deal they can't resist. I said, look, you now have an opportunity to dare me to do whatever it is you want, provided that you donate money to my favorite charity. If I hit my donation target, I will do your dare, no matter what it is.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
And I dubbed the project Care Dares. And boy, did the dare start flowing in. I'm to walk 100 miles from Boston to Northampton, Massachusetts without bringing any money or food. I'm to make a boat and float in it on the Charles River. And I'm to speak only Shakespearean English for entire week. My husband, Dan, who's Jewish, challenged me to crash a bar mitzvah.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
A coming of age celebration for a 13 year old boy. So as I'm pulling onto Memorial Drive, just minutes away from the hotel, I'm starting to experience some serious anxiety. Because if people ask me who should I say I am, I probably won't blend in with the Goldbergs. So I have to be related either through adoption or marriage.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
All right, so if a family had adopted a baby girl from China 38 years ago, you'd think they know who I am by now. All right, so that's out. Marriage. Maybe I'm just uncle so-and-so's date. Or maybe one of the kids attending the party, I'm the stepmother. Or maybe I'll just ask the person to guess and just nod to whatever it is they come up with.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
My plan is to go in there, chit-chat with a few people, maybe get on the dance floor for a song or two. If there's a limbo contest, there's usually a limbo contest, I might even participate. What I won't do, however, is eat or drink anything because I don't want to be stealing. On top of that, I brought a birthday present.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
It's just a small card game, but it's sort of my way to proactively atone for the transgression I'm about to commit. So with the plan all worked out, I step into the hotel. I figure I'll first do a walk by of the room to assess the situation. So after a long winding hallway, I see a large set of double doors. As I walk past, time slows down. I see five round tables.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
The one at 10 o'clock is populated with teen boys. I figure that's where my target is sitting. The room is brightly lit. Everyone is just sitting there quietly eating their dinners. Holy crap, there's no music, no dancing, no limbo contest, totally unlike the bar mitzvahs I've been to in the past legally. There's no way I can pull this off because if I walk in the door, all eyes will be on me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
Everyone will hear what I have to say. And I'll be instantly exposed. Abort mission, abort mission. I speedwalk back toward the hotel entrance, and it took everything in me now to run out the door in that moment. Instead, I plop into a large couch in the lobby, whip out my cell phone, and pretend to be texting. Why am I doing this? I have no idea. Well, I take some deep yoga breath.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
I want to back out, but I can't because people donated their money to charity already. And then I remember Dan telling me, look, all you have to do to prove that you crashed the bar mitzvah is to take a picture with the birthday boy. I think I may have an idea.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
I pick myself back up from the couch, go through that winding hallway, through the side of large double doors, straight toward the head table. Hi, how's everyone doing tonight? How's the food? I'm Anne from the catering department. A woman stands up, we shake hands, and we chit-chat a little. By the way, I have a present here, so who's the birthday boy?
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
My plan is to go over there to that table full of teen boys, handle their gifts while one of his friends takes a picture of two of us, and I'm out of here. Oh, the birthday girl, you mean? She's right here. It's a bar mitzvah, the girl equivalent of a bar mitzvah. I got the gender wrong. What else did I mess up? I'm just standing here.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
After I hand over the gift, she opens it up, looks at it, thanks me politely, and puts it away. And I miss my opportunity for the photo, and I can't figure out what to do next. Well, normally during these celebrations, there's music and dance. I have no idea why am I saying that. What I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to buy myself some time.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
Oh, this is just a dinner for all of our out of town guests. The actual party is tomorrow. What? Now you're telling me I came on the wrong date and crashing the dinner before the bar mitzvah? All right, let's just get this over with. Think again. Where I'm from, if you take a picture with someone who's about to celebrate their birthday, it brings you good luck. I can't believe I just said that.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
back in January 2014, I'm driving toward a hotel in Cambridge with a sense of dread in my stomach because I can't believe that I, a 38-year-old professional Asian mother, I'm about to become a party crasher. And not just any party, it's the Goldberg Bar Mitzvah. This all started back in 2008 when my son was born, a time that should have been the happiest in my life.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
It doesn't even make any sense. I cringe so hard. I'm just gonna go home now, pay everyone back for their charity donations out of my own pocket. I don't even care. But that's when I hear her say, um, sure, of course. And I hand over my cell phone for the photo. On the car ride home, I'm flooded with a sense of euphoria. It's like I just escaped a near-death experience.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
By December of 2014, I've walked across Massachusetts. I've spoken Shakespearean English for a week. And I've also built that boat out of two pieces of plywood. And my maiden voyage only lasted 10 minutes because it started leaking. And after a whole year of monthly shenanigans, my emotional bank is magically full again. And I can't believe that I'm happier than I've ever been. Thank you.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Pursuit of Happiness
I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. All of a sudden, at work, around the water cooler, I no longer know what to talk about. Instead, I find myself smiling a lot, partly to hide how I was truly feeling inside, and partly because I once read somewhere that the act of smiling will trigger happy chemicals to release in your brain.