I have grown up absolutely infatuated by words, and I continue to be amazed by new additions to my ever-expanding vocabulary. Many words hold beauty, and expression and some words help us piece together a coherent sentence. One word in particular that I have been fond of since my discovery of it is –serendipity. I remember picking up a hardcover book with an image of colorful tassels on the front with a cursive font that read, “Serendipity Market,” and wondering what that word meant. For those of you who do not know what serendipity means, a rough definition is a phenomenon where you find unexpected happiness when you were not looking for it. The official definition can be found in any dictionary, but I feel, it has taken me a good amount of time to actually understand what serendipity means. I always knew that the word serendipity was connected to happiness and that you did not look around for this joy, but the word never really made sense until I started to acknowledge the unexpected specs of merriment in my life. If I were to recall all these accounts of gaiety from the time I picked up that book initially until now, close to 10 years later, I could create a never-ending list that I could go back and read like a novel. Unfortunately, my memory will not allow me to do that, neither will my attention span. This past week, however, I did find a couple of note able examples of serendipitous encounters that I find are worth mentioning.

Over the weekend I went to go see the movie, “IT” with my brother and our friend, and I was expecting the thrill of being scared in the movie theaters. It is a particular sort of scary to be scared in a theater because unlike watching a horror movie at home in the safety of a familiar surrounding that you have absolute control over, you have no control over an unfamiliar shared space such as a theater. Thus, I was well prepared to be scared, but what I was not expecting was a red balloon to float down the side of the theater. If you have not seen, “It”, or read the book the only thing I will say is that the terrifying child-eating clown is often depicted with a red balloon in his hand. Needless to say, that was possibly the most terrifying moment of my experience watching this movie. However, it was also the most enjoyable, and memorable experience that I had, and in that experience, I found a sense of joy. The happiness was so crude and abrupt, and I suddenly had a bright red neon sign with the word serendipity in my mind-it had a couple of red balloons tied to it to cut the sweetness of the moment.

Serendipity was also found in the form of a somewhat disastrous dinner my friend Gina and I shared. After deciding that both of us were in the need of some Hot Pot we found a nice little place with a good enough yelp rating that we would go to. Never have I gone to a restaurant where I was there 20 minutes before it even opened, and so we loitered in the car, then by the door coming up with “what-if” situations. “What if they are actually closed forever?” Eventually, we did walk inside greeted by a waiter who was simultaneously surprised and if I dare to say-irritated? We had an inkling feeling the waiter was a tad bit irked, only heightened by the fact that Gina and I are particularly giggly with each other-I get it, it can be annoying. Dinner was a mess from the very beginning as we started around 1:00 by accidentally cooking one of the metal ladles along with our soup-step aside stone soup you have a modern-day competitor. Round two entailed orange juice being spilled all over the table, on the table top electric stove, and on my lovely yellow suede shoes-thank you Gina. By the time we got to round three we could hardly eat through our incessant laughter. That experience was less than conventional, but in it, I found a source of jubilation, and suddenly the neon red sign was back although this time it was accompanied by a frowning waiter instead of balloons.

Happiness is often times unexpected, and sometimes you find it in the strangest of places, but it is there if you acknowledge it. It took me a while to categorize some of my strange bursts of joy, but once I did I had a set of 5x7 glossies depicting some of my happiest moments in life, and suddenly the book with the colorful tassels came back into my memory. Words are amazing tools, and even more so when you realize just how much they play a part in your life.