Be Happy

I started three different sociological themed blogs last week and abandoned each one. Why? I don’t feel like being “heavy.” As the days get longer and warmer, and my mood improves, I feel like being lighter. Sillier. I’m actually very tired of the angst and the drama. I want happiness. Sometimes, we can choose happiness. Especially when you’re a single, well-employed, 30-something. Happiness is achievable. It’s just a matter of putting your mind to it.

Everyone’s recipe for happiness is different. I’m sorry, but manicures and pedicures just don’t do it for me. And while I find massages therapeutic, I’m not happy when I walk out the door. Same thing for exercise. In fact, if someone wrote a Cosmo article entitled “Ten Thing to Make You Happy,” I would scrunch up my nose at 75% of them. No, my brand of happiness comes from different sources. And while they might sound pretty simple, they are not always easily accessible. So, without further ado, Jessica’s Recipe for Happiness:

• A good book. To be read at the park, at the beach, or late night in bed. Book must be completely engrossing so that hours melt away and when I close the cover, I’m disappointed that the experience is over and then think about it for months on end, telling everyone how fabulous it was.

• Summer music to be listened to on a beautiful day. Songs like Summertime by Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff. Or Boys of Summer from Don Henley. Or Life is a Highway by Tom Cochran. Bonus points if played randomly on the radio.

• Children under the age of eight. I love kids. I love playing with them, tickling them, reading to them, kissing them, hugging them, and teasing them. I love how they see the world. I love their laughter and the way they smile at you. Kids are pretty great. (Unfortunately, one must know said kids’ parents or else people get the wrong idea about you.) Children rejuvenate my soul.

• Spontaneous food consumption. Whether it’s a cupcake break or getting call from a girlfriend to get dinner, I love it. It’s like calling a time-out in real life.

• Getting drinks. This might sound silly, but I like being a grown-up and “drinks” feel very grown-up to me. I like sitting and talking about everything and nothing over a glass of something that slowly loosens the muscles in my back.

• Dancing. I don’t care whether I’m swishing my butt while mopping the floor or doing the Electric Slide at a wedding, dancing is happiness for the body.

• Hard laughter. I laugh at a lot of things, but it’s not too often that I find something genuinely funny. Most things I find amusing or ironic or ridiculous. But to find something that is really funny is difficult. And while I search out people who make me think, what I really love is when I find a person who can make me laugh so hard I feel like my stomach is turning inside-out.

Just thinking about these things – writing them down – makes me happy. So, today, instead of thinking about being overweight and single and my rapidly advancing 35th birthday, I’m thinking about The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, my visit with DD’s family on Saturday night, and tacos at Hugo’s last night with Andreen. Today, I choose to be happy.