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Happiness is a bit of a foreign subject to Jenna.
Not happiness like the kind she gets when someone pays attention to her, or when she gets a solo, or someone compliments her new haircut -- artificial happiness like that is all too common. No, the foreign kind is, of course, the boring kind. The kind where your heart swells every time you see someone, and you’d be happy just to fall asleep next to them at night. That kind of happiness.
Love, or whatever the hell Liz calls it. Not lust, not eroticism. Actual love. It’s new and it’s different and somehow, it’s the happiest she’s ever been. Even happier than the time Michael Bubl
é paid her just so he could give her a lap dance. It’s ridiculous.
(Admittedly, the lap dance was not real, just something Jenna made up so people thought she was important, but the thought of it
does
make her happy.)
Paul falls asleep early, now. So does she. It might be alright, though, even if they aren’t used to it. It’s nice enough just to wake up beside him.
Sometimes, Jenna disgusts herself. Love makes her feel dirty. Liz says it shouldn’t, but it does and she doesn’t know how to fix it.
She looks herself in the mirror and tries to tell herself that she’s fine, but she can’t even believe herself. Love takes
effort.
But it’s not like Jenna is unhappy. So maybe it’s a little bit alright.
The married life is different.
Jenna really feels like she should regret getting married, but for some reason, she just… doesn’t. It’s weird, and a little gross, except it’s not the hot kind of weird and gross. Just the normal kind.She tells this to Liz, and Liz scoffs.
“You should be
happy
, Jenna,” She says. “You’re in love. It’s a good thing. I know I’m happy to be in love.”
“Yeah, but you’re boring,” Jenna reminds her. “You like… organization, and watching black and white movies, and spending time with your family. I’m
not
boring.”
“Alright, Jenna.” Liz stands up. “This was fun, but I can’t figure this out for you. It’s your life. And I’m boring, right? My advice is useless.”“I’m glad you’ve finally caught on,” Jenna says, and believes it in all seriousness. “I guess I should ask someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.”
Naturally, Jenna goes to Tracy, because Tracy always knows what he’s talking about.
“You can just, like, pretend you’re not normal,” Tracy offers his advice. He’s a little drunk, and he looks like he might pass out, but Jenna knows that this advice is better than any she’ll ever get from Liz. “Even if you’re doing normal things.”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to do,” Jenna says. “I just don’t know if it’s working. Sometimes I think--” She looks disgusted with herself. “Sometimes I think we want to do normal things, and we
don’t
want to pretend.”
Tracy laughs in disbelief, but his face shifts when it dawns on him that Jenna isn’t kidding.“Then don’t pretend,” He says simply, and goes back to dicking around on the internet, or whatever it is he does in his free time. Jenna opens her mouth to say something, but comes up short. She leaves quickly. Quietly.
And, she decides not to pretend anymore. She’s still a little weirded out by the idea of settling down in a way that doesn’t involve the strange antics that she and Paul used to get up to in the late hours of the night, but she thinks that might be alright. It’ll take some getting used to. She’s okay with that.