I realised the other night that I'm the happiest that I've ever been, and it was SUCH a lovely moment of inner peace - to feel like there is absolutely no drama in your life, and everything is, (or is at least on its way to being), the life that I've dreamed about.
This post is going to be a bit of a mess as it'll just me talking about why I think I'm so happy at the moment, which I recognise is a little strange, but I hope that perhaps some of the reasons will be useful if you're also on a journey to add some more daily happiness into your life. They won't be in order of importance or anything, I'll just be typing what comes to mind!
I also want to say that just because I'm having a really happy moment in my life right now, that doesn't mean that everything is perfect - nobody has a perfect life. I'm still very much struggling with adjusting to mine and Stephen's schedules - we saw each other for 2 hours in total this weekend, and that's really hard, but read on for some tips on what we've done to help us with that.
1. Now that lockdown is sort of almost fully eased, I have armed myself with plans. Most of the time, I have something, or multiple things to look forward to. If we’re close, then you’ll definitely have received a ‘hey, so when are we next meeting up? miss you, love you’ from me recently, and if you haven’t yet, it’s coming. I work from home 8-4pm every single weekday, and it builds up. The urge to physically see people, to go outside, to hug someone, the list goes on. I’m currently very excited about the following things: I have one tattoo a month booked for the next two months in a row, (sorry, Mum!), my bridesmaids, (do I still call them my bridesmaids, or do they revert back to being my besties again? Someone advise on this), anyway they’re currently planning my belated hen do which is in about a month, and I’m so excited for that. I’ve also been planning a date night where Stephen and I go into London, as he hasn’t been back there since before the pandemic started, and that’ll be so much fun. Make the plans. Have the fun. Seeing my friends and family much more frequently has healed my soul, and all of the hurt from a whole year of not seeing them is starting to fade away.
2. Related to that working from home all the time thing, I have to say that I try to go outside at least once a day, and it really helps – even if I just go sit outside in the garden for a little while, or I really can’t fit it into my day at all until quite late, I try to make it work.
We had a BBQ in the garden recently, and it was so much fun! It's the first BBQ we've ever done ourselves as opposed to just attended, and it was lovely to sit outside into the late evening, and cuddle and eat good food.
My job is hard so sometimes all I want to do once I’ve closed my laptop is go to bed, and sometimes I do give into that, but it’s important that I don’t do that all of the time. Stephen and I went for a walk at 10pm the other night and saw the cutest cat, which ran over to me and insisted that I gave it lots of cuddles – honestly, it was the best. Go get some fresh air.
3. ALSO, I am now in a job where I don’t have half terms or anything like that carved out for me, so it’s super important that I remember to take my paid time off. At least one person from my team was either off, or sent in a PTO request every single day last week, and it inspired me. I now have the day before my hen do booked off, for no reason at all except that I wanted it, and a half day on the day I’m taking Stephen to London so that we don’t have to squeeze all of the fun I want us to have into a post-4pm time slot.
4. Speaking of date nights, Stephen and I have been doing a lot more 'phones-off’ date nights, and that is really lovely because it means that we’re fully in the moment, and enjoying our time that we’re together. I’ve mentioned it in a post before, but Stephen works nights, and they’re usually in a row so we’ll have about an hour or two in common that we’re both awake every day, before he leaves for work again. Date nights where we can properly connect have become all the more important since he started that job. I’ve definitely been guilty of sitting on my phone during a film before, and so has he, but we’re both much better at it, now. A bit of an oddball one here, but we’ve been playing cards a lot recently – playing cards holds a lot of nostalgia for me as I used to play with my family all the time when I was small, and my Dad and I particularly played a lot. I’ve loved teaching Stephen some of my favourite games, and enjoying them together.
5. Linked to the ‘phone off’ thing, I’ve reinstated my screen time limit, and have gone back to being strict with myself about it lately. I have to be honest, I kind of abandoned it for about a week after our wedding footage came in, because making the 100s of TikToks I made does take time, and so does posting on Instagram. Just social media, in general, is a real time suck. Take your life back from it, when you can.
6. I also feel incredibly accomplished all the time, at the moment. As mentioned above, my job is hard, but aside from that, our ‘try to make this house a home’ project is still ongoing, and we really made progress with it last week when we actually built our first item of furniture together – 3 years of living together and we hadn’t done that yet. It’s a gorgeous metal shelf that we’re using to display photos, cookbooks, and some cute new plants. It’s a massive improvement from what that corner in the lounge used to look like, and we both absolutely love it. I’ve also just been taking some time tidying up some areas, and that also makes the house feel nicer. We've also got a cute new bathroom rug, replaced Stephen's floordrobe with a glittery hamper, and a gorgeous mounted sign for the fridge.
As well as that, I’ve been filling out all of the name change forms this past week as I can now because our marriage certificate came in. If you’ve ever changed your name, then you know what I’m talking about when I say it is a PROJECT. (I used NameSwitch and I recommend this, if you're also changing your name, soon). Every time I tick something off of that list, it’s a massive accomplishment, so feeling like I’m making progress in life is definitely something that’s making me happier.
On top of all of that, we are also planning our reception party for next year, which is super exciting and it’s starting to take shape, now.
7. Some of you might also remember that my Yale course last year taught me that daily acts of kindness can make us happier – I started doing this in December, and it’s now a properly ingrained habit even 7 months later, and I do think that makes me happier for sure – because there’s a sense of me wanting to do something kind for someone every day, (or myself some days), and that’s really nice. You can read more about my findings after the course here, if you missed it last year.
8. Music plays a huge part in my life at the moment, especially because I’m alone so often. I’m one of those people who suddenly hears every single noise that the house makes when I’m on my own, so music really helps, plus part of romantacising your life is being able to choose your soundtrack, and this is how I do that. Please do message if you want some really cool Spotify playlists I’ve found, because I have tonnes! My favourite one at the moment is called ‘songs that get me so hyped I could run through a mfn wall like the kool aid man’. I’m begging you to type that into Spotify and listen to whole playlist – it’s just incredible vibes. I also learnt on TikTok recently that starting your day by blasting one of your favourite songs helps you to wake up, and gets you out of bed in a good mood. Obviously, I can’t do this on the days where Stephen gets in from work at 7am, so I only do it some days, but when I do, it definitely starts my day off right. Music is such a healer.
9. I sort of touched on this one in my ‘things I’ve learnt recently’ post, but it has become even clearer to me since then that it’s so important. I’ve decided to be very clear about who has access to me, and my life. I used to be of the belief that you keep someone around on your social media so that they can see you happy without them, because happiness is the best revenge, but honestly? Just get rid. I’d hate to think that anyone was snooping on my life to see when my happiest moments are, so that they can take control of that moment, and cause some drama to ruin it. I will never get the weekend of our legal wedding back due to the amount of stress that I felt when I was invited into some drama that same weekend, and it’s such a shame. The people that I definitely want to have access to me are those who choose kindness all of the time, even when they’re angry at me, or when I’ve done something wrong. I am so thankful for everyone in my life who can hold space for me, and communicate with me in a kind and respectful way, even when, and especially when we’re working through something. I will cherish those friends forever.
10. So this one is in relation to me opening up about my eating disorder in a post at the beginning of the month, and I want to say thank you to everyone who messaged me with kind words – it means a lot to me as it’s something that only my husband really knows the whole story of because I literally never speak about it with anyone else – but I think part of being the happiest version of myself is living my truth, and accepting what I’ve been through and learning ways to cope with it. I’ve learnt that people can’t help you with things that they don’t know about. Read that again.
11. Leading on from that one, I’ve recently been reading about body neutrality, and it’s been fantastic to be armed with that knowledge. Body neutrality is the idea that we don’t have to love or romantacise every part of our bodies all of the time, because for a lot of us, that’s impossible. I’m not going to wake up one morning and be completely in love with my body – that takes work, but what I CAN work to do, is to simply just not hate my body. It's not the most important thing about me, and so, I don’t have to love it, but I can work towards just being indifferent to it, and I love that. So much of what we see online in the body positivity movement is people saying ‘I used to feel like this, and now I feel the complete opposite’, and that’s not always realistic. I have a body. It has gotten me through 26 ½ years of a beautiful life, and I’m proud of it for that. Sometimes that’s all there is to it.
Well, I definitely didn’t plan on this post being 2000 words, and having 11 points just like the one of these that I wrote at the start of the month. Sometimes things work out!
Have a fantastic week xo
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