On Thursday, January 9th 2020, I finally reached the feeling I had been chasing since my move out of the city. For the entirety of the day, and a handful of days afterwards, I felt genuine happiness.
It was not quite what I anticipated and it snuck up on a day where it absolutely didn’t belong. There was very mediocre weather, I was in work out clothes, no make up, and it was a day that started with a trip to the dentist (I do have the world's most attractive dentist and no cavities and was told I was a good flosser but this is purely anecdotal). It was a subtle, soft, and warm happy, non-situational, and something I had to bounce off of my parents and Whitney for a temperature read and… general celebration. It was a background version of happy, and everything passed through the filter felt like a bit of a miracle. The day felt differently when I woke up; the cortisol dose that I usually experience when my eyes open was missing, and it took my until 1pm to figure out what what happening.
It lasted just under a week, book ended with my trip back to the city for the best night ever (Kendall's one cent birthday) and a consequential nose-dive of a come down from a monumental hangover, parking ticket, and some unfortunate personal news that took a week to bounce back from. I felt the need to add this in to drive home good (and bad) feelings eventually do change and … that's fine.
In efforts to figure things out for myself, I made a list of all contributors that have been in my life consistently for the past 6 weeks :
Living outside of the city
Cutting back - less of almost everything taxing
Time alone
Time with my family
Upcoming travel
Baby time
Bike riding
Eating mostly plants
Exercising regularly
Exercising regularly in company of very old people
WALKING DOGS
Being outside
Reading before bed
Cooking at home
Fireside chats with Bob
No sleep math
2 drinks max (this has it's exceptions)
Painting
Being in dead quiet (hearing my neck when I turn my head)
New things
Writing for work
Writing for me
Not paying rent (yooooooo)
Looking at clouds a lot (painting research)
Doing for people for no reason (you do this when you have more time)
Having an established routine
Having a flexible routine :)
Eating from the garden
Good podcasts - Las Culturistas, Rupaul, Supersoul, any Esther
Self work
What I will say about this exercise is - despite being away from working and the city and avoiding more stressors than I ever have, things have still found their way in to be worried about. That never goes away - the threshold just changes. Mine absolutely has, still with the same spectrum, but just a good amount of points up the sliding scale. It will adjust with what I chose to do next, I have no doubt. But I do cry from being happy now more than I ever before.
Thrilled to have these synapses connecting, and at least the ability to say I was able to do what I was trying to do, even if its a few chunks of days at a time.
And now I have this list to come back to when I need it.
:)
T