When I wake up before my alarm and don’t have to listen to the excruciating sound of it ringing, that is 10 seconds of me feeling relief.
When I walk out to the bus station and the bus isn’t late, and I can walk in a relaxed pace to my job as a barista and as a receptionist on other days, that gives me about five to forty minutes of calm.
At work, customers come in and go out again. With every especially friendly and understanding customer, I feel about 10 seconds of happiness, even if there are customers of the bad side in-between. Sometimes the bad ones would overshadow, and their sticky shady shitty words stay with me until I get home late at night, but I am learning not to grant them that much power.
When I discover yet another book I want to read, and then I do, and it finishes strong and I end up closing the book and feeling everything at once, I make a promise to keep the book forever in my shelf. Each time I look at it, I’ll remember how satisfying it was to read it.
When I play my music on shuffle and a song comes on, associated with a specific happy memory in my head, it can take me out of any bad feeling for at least the entirety of the 3 minutes and 45 seconds of the song. It lasts longer if I let it repeat.
When I walk past a dog and it wiggles its tail or has eye contact with me on the bus or the tram, I feel happy for the entire time it’s looking at me. The same goes with babies and little kids. The other day a little girl whispered to her mother that she thought I was pretty. I grinned for seconds at each different stage of the day.
I feel over the moon for half a day when I get unexpected compliments on my perfume, my outfit, my demeanor, and my reactions, things I can and can’t really control. I equally get offended because I take a lot personally, which is a personal flaw, but the same sensitivity gives me joy when the pleasant stuff happens.
When in a full train I happen to get a seat for a 2 hour long ride, I count myself really lucky. Even luckier when the museum I am visiting doesn’t disappoint.
It’s an entire day of giddiness when I feel like I am part of something, like when I hang out with my loved ones, and they seem to be enjoying my company, thus my entire existence. I go to sleep, sometimes exhausted from staying up late, but grateful.
I try to fill my days with seconds of happiness like that, and that is why the days can go by, bearable and all.
Inspired by the Korean drama, My Liberation Notes:
My Liberation Notes (2022) is story of three siblings and a mysterious stranger who want to escape their frustrating lives.
Adored this letter, reminds me of those ordinary moments that can still make us happy.
ok hands down this is one of the BEST letters I have received from you. hannah, miss ma'am, you never fail to appeal <3