Day 1: The Happiness Project
It’s a cruddy, grey day today, with heavy white skies hovering low. Everything out there is sodden; the roof tiles on the houses opposite are matte silver with rain. The blossoms on the big tree in the back yard are falling to the ground, saturated. I’m shimmering with exhaustion after another sleepless night with a squirmy, howling, colicky baby who is trying valiantly to not come down with the bug that’s going around.
If anybody asks, I’m fine.
And I am- and not just in a Christmas-In-London kind of way, where I’m sending suspiciously perky mass emails to friends and family whilst collapsed in a miserable heap in phone booths around the city, waiting for time zones to align so I could call home and cry.
No, it’s nothing like that.
I’m fine.
However, it’s becoming very apparent that I need to focus a little harder on finding the little bits of daily loveliness, the small happy details that aren’t always spotted, noted or appreciated. Since moving to England– hell, since leaving China– I’ve felt a bit dulled, a bit fuzzier around the edges, a bit buffeted by foggy external forces. Maybe it’s because I’m neither working nor travelling nor studying. Maybe it’s because I’m living in a place too familiar to be exotic or challenging enough to note, but which is also foreign enough to be not my own home. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t quite landed on my feet here yet, compiling a collection of good friends and happy places and oddly satisfying hobbies (think woks and mops).
Maybe it’s because I haven’t really slept in weeks.
It could be that.
Anyway, I’m starting a new series for this season to make sure I don’t find myself in a self-perpetuated slump, where all I see are the grey sky and fallen blossoms, where sleeplessness makes everything just seem that much harder to deal with.
The origin of the idea is from here. It appeared in my facebook timeline yesterday, posted by a friend going through a similarly frustrating meh time. The idea is to post a photo every day for 100 days of something, however small or mundane or intangible, that made you happy. Possible results? An appreciation for underappreciated details; a tangible example of good things.
I’ll start with this one:
The whole Happiness Project collection of posts can be found here.
Ooo, I like this! I may have to steal this idea. I think I could use some 100 days of happiness right about now. Especially after this semester which felt like 100 days of research paper miserableness.
Sally recently posted..7 Reasons I Really Kind of Like Spring
I’ve never been a Sylvia Plath fan (I admire her skill, but I don’t connect with her, if that makes sense) but her “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” has a lot to say on this subject. And she says it really excruciatingly well. Relevant bit:
I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.
Can I just say how impressive it is that you made those muffins while sleepless and taking care of an infant?
Heather recently posted..Cherry Blossoms Galore: A Celebration of Spring in Washington, DC
I am also amazed you did this. I can barely feed myself, let alone a child and husband — or yourself! XO!
Jeannie Mark recently posted..The Via Rail Experience & Home
🙂
Hormones and sleep deprivation do horrible things to your brain. I’m around if you’d like to chat in person, but, really, you’ll feel much happier when you can actually lie down with the expectation of sleeping, ya know, six hours straight. Or even eight.
Theodora recently posted..We Learn to Make Pasta in Bologna
Thanks, Theodora. I’m doing okay in spite of the tiredness. I guess I’ve just had plenty of practise at trying to figure out the incomprehensible on very little sleep. Having a baby is a bit like China. Hoping to get 6 hours sleep at some point.