#30DayWritingChallenge – Day 1: Happiness

I don’t normally pay attention to these things but I came across this #30DayWritingChallenge and I figured I would give it a shot. Things have been so very depressing lately. Surely anything to lighten the mood is just going to be a great idea? Plus, I’m all about Project: Love Thyself right now.

Let’s see if it works…

Day 1: List 10 things that make you really happy. 

I had to think about this for a while before I could start writing things down which is quite ironic seeing as I initially thought this question would be a really easy one to answer. I actually don’t know what makes me really happy. It seemed to take me forever to come up with answers. Weeks. I actually started writing this post back in December. I knew it would come in handy one day! 😉

But I think I was overthinking things way too much. Let’s go back to basics. Let’s start with the little things that make me smile and make me feel content…

1 – Walking

I like to put my headphones in, find the most upbeat music I can find, and walk. I used to walk to work every day. Sometimes I’d even walk home. There’s something about just stomping along with nothing but the beat of the music in your ears. A little poetic perhaps but it just feels right.

I’m currently obsessed with anything by Justin Bieber. I don’t know when I became a Belieber but he seems to be getting me through the worst of my breakup / exes getting married / exes having babies scenarios.

Try it – make yourself a playlist and just go walking. Get lost in your own thoughts. Think about all the things you don’t let yourself think about. It’s good for the soul I’m sure of it.

2 – My cat

She’s adorable and I love her to bits. She was brought to me in the middle of the night by a work colleague who found her, a teeny-tiny baby, under a car tyre. He put her in my arms wrapped up in my favourite blanket and that was it. We fell in love with each other right there and then and she hasn’t left my side since. She sleeps with me, sits with me, distracts me as I try to work… She’s so cute and so funny with her own little personality.  She’s a little bitch. She wrecks everything I own. She always makes me happy though! 🙂

3 – Complete strangers who smile at you as you walk by

I like to think of myself as a nice person, a kind person, one with good manners. I say please and thank you and I’m always nice to people who serve me in shops, cafes, etc. I smile at people when I make eye contact with them in the hope that my one smile helps to make them smile, if only for a split second. I’m a big fan of doing things for other people like random acts of kindness, and I like to think that a smile is just that – an act of kindness.

Not enough people smile, I say, and when they smile right back at me, it kinda makes me feel good for a minute. It makes me feel happy.

4 – New shoes

Because I really, really love shoes. The crazier, more colourful, the better. I like my shoes to be unique. If another girl has the same shoes as me when I’m out and about, I want to run home and change them immediately.

It’s kinda my thing.

5 – My bestie

He always knows how to cheer me up. He always knows when to put the kettle on and when to put Call of Duty on the Xbox and just let me shoot some shit. He knows when I need tissues and chocolate and tampons and coffees. He just knows me. He makes me happy.

Sometimes I often wonder if we could ever make it together as a couple but 15 years as best friends with ZERO sex (apart from one time we almost did…), I reckon it’s probably left well alone, don’t you?

6 – Text messages that make you smile 

It doesn’t need to be a partner or even anyone remotely boyfriend / girlfriend but those little text messages that just make you beam from one side of your face to other? I love those?

Morning messages always get me, especially when its from someone I REALLY like. Those text messages always get me beaming from ear to ear even when I’m in the grumpiest of moods.

7 – When things go according to plan

You see, this makes me happy because things NEVER go to plan in my life. I’ll make a date with someone, buy new eyeliner to celebrate the event, and then suffer an allergic reaction to said new eyeliner on the morning of the date. That’s what my life is like. Nothing goes to plan, nothing ever turns up on time and nothing ever goes right.

Or so it seems anyway.

When things do go according to plan, my plans, it makes me happy. When projects go just the way I want them to or when something I do has the end result I’d aimed for, it makes me deliriously happy. I love it when things go to plan!

8 – Meeting someone who makes you feel fizzy in your tummy

I know that sounds daft but honestly, I don’t think I’ve had a feeling like that for a really long time. I don’t even think I had a fizzy in my tummy for The Director. I think it was more like pure, unadulterated lust. Yeah, let’s go with that.

But that feeling you have when you meet someone you REALLY connect with… That’s a great feeling. I love that feeling. When you let your head get carried away with dreams and thoughts of what might be, of what could be, and every time you see them your heart races and your palms get sweaty. It’s a real cliche I know but I miss that. I want that. One day…

9 – The perfect cup of tea

I genuinely, one hundred percent think that tea is so underrated, it’s beyond a joke. Tea has the potential to change me from a demon beast to a pretty, smiling girl first thing in the morning. It has the potential to calm me down when I’m stressed, or to stop me crying. It brings people together and creates friendships. Sometimes it creates love. Tea is important.

I like mine pretty strong with just a splash of milk (added after the hot water), with two level teaspoons of sugar, stirred really well. The hotter the better. If it burns my insides on the way down, you’ve made me the perfect cup of tea.

Great cups of tea makes me really happy. Is that wrong?

10 – Unexpected handwritten letters

My best female friend on the other side of the world sends me handwritten letters. She includes actual physical photos of her, her hubby and the two kids she now has. Every time I get them they tear my heart apart because I miss that girl more than she will ever, ever know. But at the same time I cry because I just love her so much. She knows how much I love handwritten letters and even though I’m a really bad friend and I don’t always send them back as frequently as I should, she carries on sending them regardless.

I love that girl. She’s a really good girl. My life got better when she entered it. She’s just a  beautiful person.

But yeah, handwritten letters – that’s how you make a girl like me fall in love with you.

*****

So those are my ten things that make me happy. They’re little things aren’t they? Silly things? But they make me happy. They make me smile, or cry, or laugh, but all for a good reason. They make my heart happy.

What makes you happy? Can you list ten things that make you happy?

Come and join in on my #30DayWritingChallenge 🙂