Chewbacca mom breaks the Internet, and my heart!

Candace Payne, I love you.

I’ve watched you laugh, and laugh, and laugh about 10 times so far today, and you make me cry along with you every time.

Thank you. It’s not often we get to experience someone else’s true, honest, unbridled joy—there’s not one thing that feels faked about Candace’s Facebook post.

Last time I checked, 76.9 million people had watched Candace’s viral video, now being called “happy Chewbacca” by many folks on the “Internet Webs.”

Seriously, this is the best gift I could have gotten today, and it is the type of thing that really feeds the soul and makes the fire burn a little bit brighter in that happy place we all have.

Viral videos have never really done anything for me. Many of them either feel rehearsed, or get a laugh through some form of cruelty, whether it’s some inexplicable injury or at the expense of someone’s looks, speech, disability, what have you.

Candace is having none of that. Candace is just having a blast, and we’re all along for the ride. It’s her world today. In fact, Star Wars’ owner, Disney, needs to send her a six-figure check right now. I mean, right now. Go ahead. Do it.

Maybe I’m making too much out of it, placing too much import on one little video. Yet what does it say about my cynical nature—the cynical nature of man—that this has left such a profound effect on me?

That’s easy: There aren’t a whole lot of chances to feel something so pure and positive.

I’m not laughing at the odd juxtaposition of Middle America Mom wearing an overpriced piece of plastic, or the silly look on her face, or the quick quips and one-liners she shoots at the camera with the timing of a seasoned stand-up vet. No way.

I’m laughing at that big bright searchlight of happiness that has been looking for me for years, and by me, I mean us. This is a woman who walks the walk of joy; she oozes it from her cherry-red cheeks to the bouncy little bob hairdo. Yes, that’s all we can see in the tightly framed video, but she radiates what I want in my life that I don’t have enough of, and she forced it on me today. Whether I liked it or not. And I did. We did.

I watched the video with my wife several times, and to see her throw her head back and laugh deep belly laughs each and every time, eyes watering and a little out of breath, was intoxicating. Wow. It’s not just me. Thanks, Candace. I got to see what happiness looks like today in that unfiltered, unqualified way. Breathtaking, truly.

Disney, did you send that check yet?

And by the way, as I type this line, her views were up to 78.2 million. If this planet was powered by joy, it just might blow up tonight from an overload. I dare you to say different.