The Background Noise

This is in actuality for a really special guy whom I know reads our blog even though he doesn't comment on it. He asked me a question yesterday that got me thinking about this. All our lives have this background sound track (and OF COURSE I'm talking metaphorically here!!!). Its been there since the day we were born, which probably explains why most of us hardly even notice it anymore (or maybe most of you do, and its just me who doesn't :p). Maybe if it disappeared all of a sudden, if I went to sleep and woke up the next morning to silence, to the absolute absence of the background score, maybe then I would stop and think, and say "Hmmm, odd, something's wrong here but I can't put my finger on it", and decline into a state of miserable melancholy.
I also like to call it the Things that Make Me Happy :). Its the cross talk of the world, cept its nowhere as annoying as the real thing (remember when you'd make a call to someone and there'd be like these other people on the phone yelling about the fresh fish they bought this morning and were planning to cook for lunch, leaving you bewildered as to why your best friend who just yesterday seemed perfectly fine when the two of you were playing in the school volleyball court was suddenly hollering about fish?).
Its the cleaning lady who comes into the gym every morning (at the stroke of 7!) and nods at me with this beaming smile, as if yelling out to the world just what a perfectly beautiful day it is (even if its raining cats n dogs outside). Its the text message I read as I'm leaving my apartment to go to work, from one of my friends asking me how my day's been so far (though I've been awake for barely 2 hours :p), its the way the other "regulars" who take the same bus as me to work grin at me and yak about the weather (or if its a Monday, gripe about the weather, and about everything else they can think of actually).
Its the ping of my inbox that tells me I've Got Mail (the nicest three words in the English language if you ask me), and when I go to my inbox I see a mail from someone who I didn't think would mail me (you know who you are!) or someone who hasn't mailed me in a while (like my ex-supervisor who every now and then will send me a mail accusing me of forgetting all about him and signing off - in a huff - as Ex-Boss) or from one of my best pals asking me where the heck I am, why I haven't mailed her yet and whether I'm free for lunch or not.
Its coming to the blog every morning (as soon as I can) and reading all the comments, or the latest piece blogged by my sis and then blog hopping systematically (I have a "round" now, I know how cops must feel on their daily beat). Its taking the elevator and striking up a conversation with a total stranger about how we both hate the fact that the elevator takes so long to get from the top floor to the bottom one (since I live *by which I mean work* on the top floor, everytime I have to leave the building it takes forever to get down to the ground floor and I've had some really funny conversations with people, including one hapless, unsuspecting victim on whom I foisted a pair of my used lab gloves to dispose of, hehe). Its calling home and hearing the surprise and pleasure in the way my dad says hello (he is Always both Surprised and Pleased in equal proportions when I call, I figure its cos after twenty years of living with him and one year of living away when I didnt call home At All, he really doesn't expect me to call very often :P).
I think, more than anything, its the 'wellness' I collect. All the people I care about are fine, all the people I care about care about me, all the people I care about and who care about me know that I'm fine, and even all the people I don't care about one whit are happy and busy and perfectly willing to strike up obscure conversations on the String theory (OK OK the weather! ) with me in the elevator or the stairwell, or the sidewalk or the bus. And it makes me happy.