May the Forced Smile Be With You

There's an old song about smiling.  It says you should smile even though your heart is aching and breaking.  I always thought it was a stupid sentiment but I've changed my mind.

I have a natural down turning mouth.  And as I've gotten older it is drooping more than ever.  So about a year ago I decided to train myself to have a smile on in public.  It is not as easy as one would think.  I had to practice and check in the mirror once in a while.  One time when I thought I had a nice smile on my face it looked like I was sneering.  So that's why you have to practice.
I decided I needed to do this when we were headed to Mt. Sandia in New Mexico for the annular eclipse.  An annular eclipse is not a full one but it looks like a ring of fire.  Very cool and it hardly ever happens.  Anyway, I knew there would be a huge crowd and my husband insisted that we get there nice and early...like hours early....like ten.
So I took my handy Kindle and my fake smile and sat there and I met a lot of interesting people.  I figured they wanted to sit by us because of my charming smile.
I even smiled while I trudged my way through our boring book club selection.
It is true that people smile back when you are  smiling.  I always thought that was just made up but it's not.  I forget I'm smiling now and am startled at times when a stranger throws a smile my way.  It happens though.  In the grocery, in Target and even when I'm driving.  Really.
We have a weather reporter here that has a natural all-the-time smile.  He can tell me we are having a tornado and 15 feet of snow all on the same day and it is not so awful when you see his cute smile.  He always looks happy to be on air and talking about our not so fun weather.  I'll bet most of his viewers are smiling at him!  I know I am.
So force yourself to smile, you'll be glad you did no matter how fake it may be.