Smiling

I don’t smile a lot. And a lot of people throughout my life have complained about that.

Friends and family alike have told me that I ought to smile.

It’s an absurd sentiment though, isn’t it? We’re told not to lie and to always be honest and just be ourselves but then the same people who tell us to be ourselves turn around and demand that we smile.

Funny enough, I lost a friendship over my not smiling before—how ridiculous is that?

And it’s not that I’m unhappy; quite the contrary. I can be in a good mood and still have people come up to me and tell me.

“Greg, you need to smile more.”

If anything that makes me more unlikely to put on a happy face for someone who clearly doesn’t know me all that well.

Because here’s the thing, I smile when I laugh, I smile when I’m enjoying good food and savoring every bite. I smile at my nephew and the children of my friends. I smile when I talk out of a real adoration of something, words going so fast out of my mouth that I cannot help but to smile. But there is one thing that makes me smile more than anything.

Comic Con.

Again, those that know me will not be surprised by this in the slightest but I adore Comic Cons. I love cosplay and seeing the passion and dedication of those around me. I love that so many people can bring characters I love to life and put a smile on children’s face.

I love the smile on kid’s faces when I tell them that their costumes look so good.

I love the smile on celebrity’s faces when they see me dressed as their characters and I get to tell them how much I love their work.

I love getting my picture taken by people who are in as much awe of my hard work and dedication as I am in awe of theirs.

I smile when I walk from the doors where the crowds of a hundred thousand people will mob into the convention centers to tear at the memorabilia to the end of the line where I will happily wait an hour or more with my friends and fellow nerds, talking costumes and movies and more. I love hearing people say my costume’s name in equal excitement that I have for most of theirs. I love that when I’m in costume I feel like I can do anything and be who I aspire to be.

There’s a confidence there that forces a smile to my face and makes me truly happy. Not content, or at peace, but truly happy. It’s when I get to spend a weekend with my best friend and it is as if all the time and the pain of distance is gone and we are the same people we knew for all our lives.

I remember the first time I felt that rush of wearing a costume and selling the character. I remember the little kids coming up to me at the library to get candy from a six foot tall Vader. But I will always remember the way this child’s eyes lit up when he saw that there was another Vader there besides himself. He looked up at his parents as if it was real--as if I were actually Darth Vader and he got to meet a hero. And for that moment, I wasn’t a seventeen year old kid sweating so profusely that I thought I might pass out under many layers of leather. I was Darth Vader and I was making a child’s whole night.

Because that’s what costumes are all about. When actors go to see children in hospitals in costume, their faces light up. When a Baltimore millionaire, who so tragically died last year, delivered gifts to children in hospitals it wasn’t him doing it—it was Batman. And that’s what I love. Costuming and conventions and all of it lets us put smiles on people’s faces. It gives us something to talk about and builds connection.

No one at these conventions seems out of place, everyone is welcome from families, to men and women, people of all ages, creeds, races and orientations are welcome. It is a communal activity of who we are together and what we love as a collective that makes it so special. Conventions and cosplay are not without faults but to err is to human and to cosplay is to bring us together.

And that’s something to smile over.