Joy

Here is a list of things that have been bringing me absolute joy as of late.

1. Absolutely perfect evenings in England; cloaked in liquid sunshine, like honey trickling through leafy canopies, saturating the air with warmth.
2. Feeling really stressed and pent up, then going for a run (preferably on one such aforementioned evening) and experiencing the euphoria that slides one’s mood from a 3 to a 9.
3. Waking up early in the morning and queueing up in the line for a bakery, the smell of fresh bread and just-baked cakes milling in the air in anticipation of the almond croissant that awaits. I’m going to do this tomorrow and I can’t contain my excitement.
4. Benedict Cumberbatch.
5. The first coffee of the morning… and on weekends, the absolute indulgence of the second.
6. Having fresh flowers at home. Flowers that are bright orange and pink against the rich green of their leaves. Flowers planted on lovingly tended borders. Flowers whose fragrance gets you kinda high. Flowers because have no purpose but to be beautiful. The fact that supermarkets still regarded flowers as ‘essential items’ (they are essential to my wellbeing, TYVM).
7. When amazon delivers a new book in the post and you rip the seal, open it up and flick through the pages and cry in delight.
8. Doing admin and feeling really self satisfied at the end of it.
9. @risingwoman- Thankyou for your wisdom, material, courses, insight and for being my therapy.
10. Spontaneity.
11. Learning what it is to have boundaries and the feel good-ness of maintaining them.
12. Declining an invitation to be social when you’re feeling antisocial, simply because you like yourself enough to do that.
13. Having Whatsapp banter wars with R- even when we’re both at work.
14. Feeling okay with not feeling okay; reaching out to others, going for walks, stress baking, ranting, writing and validating whatever may rise.
15. Choosing the colour of uniball fineliner with which I’m going to write my gratitudes each morning.
16. Giving my internalised trauma a name (I call her Storm) and watching her hold over me ease, integrating her into my life and accepting her in her total imperfection.
17. Seeing 11:11 on the clock.
18. Cutting the line in the Sainsbury’s queue by showing my NHS ID (I know it’s wrong but I’m shamelessly milking the perks.)
19. Barista Edition Oat Milk (Recently discovered Califia Farms and boy does she whip like a dream).
20. My absolute brown, middle class, privileged existence. Not worrying about being shot for the colour of my skin. Not being at the centre of police brutality. Not having to worry constantly about making ends meet and being able to afford things like therapy and self help courses. Not being treated as a second class citizen for being a woman of colour (most of the time). The privilege of being both heterosexual and cis-gender. Having ticked society’s boxes (homeowner, engaged to be married, job) on my own actual terms and because it’s what I wanted… but the privilege of not being questioned over it because I’ve followed the path they wanted me to, regardless.