The decision to be happy

So It’s another hot, sunny, humid day, and I’m tremendously hungover off the three-and-a-bit beers I had last night. This seems too little beer to make my head pound this much, but it’s hot and it’s humid, and maybe my body is punishing me for dehydrating it more when the season is already doing enough. On the bright side, it’s a day off work, so as much as I try to inspire myself to get out of bed, to get to somewhere where there’s coffee, and to be productive, it’s really not that terrible a thing when I decide no, I might as well sleep a bit longer. “A bit longer” turns into two and a half hours. It’s fine.

And I wake up feeling markedly less rough and I think, yes, that was the right thing to do for myself. And these are the decisions I’ve been trying to make more and more lately. Unless something is absolutely critical, in which case I will force myself to do it, I’ve been trying to think in terms of what’ll bring me most joy, what I want to do. Me n’ me’ve gotta spend a lot of time together, after all, so we might as well get along. I eventually inspire myself to get out of bed properly, to go somewhere where there’s coffee. I decide to leave my computer at home; the trickier business can wait. Mainly I just want to drink a latte made by someone else. Stare at a wall, consumed by my own thoughts. And when I’m there I decide to have a slice of carrot cake, because although I’ve been trying to eat well, I feel that carrot cake will bring me joy.

Carrot cake does bring me joy.

And it’s my day off, and it’s hot, sunny, and humid, and I’m almost out of food at home so I decide to go get groceries, but not at the local Sainsbury’s. I want more selection than that. I walk to Camden to go to the massive store there, and as I walk along through Kentish Town, under that perfect bridge that shows exactly when you switch over to Camden Town, then along the canal, I have the simplest, most important epiphany: I want to be happy. To spend more time feeling as perfectly content as I do right then. This constant search for happiness is at the root of everything I do, but I’ve had such a strange time lately, life’s highest highs making way for its lowest lows, that I’ve almost forgotten this truth about myself. I want to be happy.

And it’s amazing, because you know how I’ve been feeling ever since? Happy. And of course I won’t always be, of course moods come and go, but I’ll try my best.

I want to surround myself with the people who bring me joy, who make me feel good about myself, who make me a better person. I’m remarkably lucky to have many such people in my life, and these are the people on whom I should always focus my energy. I’m all bright colours, all lists of positive things. I spend a good portion of my time scribbling down my happiest moments in a bright yellow (or purple, or red, or eventually pink) notebook. I never feel like myself when I’m complaining, best enjoy the company of people with whom my conversations can flipflop between utter nonsense & deep and poignant.

I’m naturally a very happy person, and I should never allow myself to forget that. Never let any external factors make me forget who I am.

I have for a long time viewed having too many emotions as being a bad thing, but am bad at lying, so I’ve spent a lot of time repressing myself ineffectively, feeling things constantly but not wanting to admit it even to myself. And I think it’s time for me to stop being that way. I want to be happy, but I want to allow myself to feel everything else as well. And I want to be an open book, to not worry about giving too much of myself away.

Just be a human being, basically.

Incidentally, this human being has changed her hair. You can of course form your own opinions, but it’s kind of amazing. It’s like the old saying goes: new hair, new outlook*.

* I may have just made this up.