During the summer between 8th grade and high school, I went to this little place in Canada named Cobden with a friend of mine. We stayed in a cabin on a lake and swam, hiked, met some boys, and hung out with her grandparents. On her grandparents’ coffee table was a book with a title like “1000 Things to be Happy About.” Since there was only one bathroom, my friend, her brother and I would go there in the mornings to shower and while I waited for one of them to finish, I read through this little book.
Ever since then, I have had this notion to publish a similar text in which I pinpointed a bunch of things of this sort and then, when I came across one that prompted a specific memory, I would launch into a brief vignette, in memoir fashion. I don’t know if I will ever finish this, but last night I was feeling pretty down and while writing in my journal, I started a list of things I was thankful for/took a small amount of joy from.
This began when I looked down at my hardwood floors and decided that I really love them. Then this list:
- The day of the month when my issue of Martha Stewart Living arrives
- Episodes of Friends coming on just when you felt like watching it
- Big glasses of water
- The little purple flowers that are growing in my yard
- Elliot’s giggling when he’s getting into trouble
- Pedicures
- New pens/books to write in
- When the house is neat and tidy
- Drinking my vitamins each morning from a small mason jar
- Blasting the radio in my car on the drive home.
- Real World/Road Rules Challenge, on Mtv
- Buying comics on Wednesdays
- This fangirl drawing. Note: Nightwing’s boxers = OMGCUTE.
- That time right before sunset (yes, dusk, I know) when everything is bathed in a warm orange
That’s only a brief list of course. Over the years, I have accumulated so many scraps of paper, partial text documents, and random journal pages with bullet points that I could put into this if I ever got motivated enough. For now, I just use these as little reminders to be happy, not sulk, and enjoy life while I can. I find lately that it goes much too quickly to waste time on being depressed.
