As my dream starts to confuse me, I hear the noises of someone nearby. From the real world that is. It wakes me up and I open my eyes. I hear her breathing. I see the ceiling. That hideous lamp that I still have on my todo list as ‘get rid of that hideous ceiling lamp’ is in my sight; today it doesn’t bother me. My eyes squint when I look towards the curtains that move slightly. Yeah, bright light, it’s daytime. It must be, it feels like it’s 7 or 8 in the morning. For once I have been asleep during nightly hours. Well, mostly.
tl;dr Did I just experience happiness? Guess so.
Stretching my legs, pushing the blankets away a little, the curtains move again. I am sure I closed the windows, it’s been freezing temperatures outside afterall. No complaints so far, and I turn to the left and look at the phone. Ah, I see, it’s where the breathing is coming from. Guess she and I fall asleep together. If I remember it correctly, she was just browsing stories and listening to me talk about my lazy day. I must have nodded off, or maybe she did first. I can’t tell. It’s fine, I will hang up on her soon, probably. Thanks for the company though.
The light keeps dancing against the walls, “curtains”, I whisper. She mumbles something in her sleep. I smile, but put the phone in the charger and push it out of sight. My head turns, and the mystery revealed itself, or should I say: herself? “Psst”, I say, and the tail sticking in between the curtains starts to playfully move around. It’s Sasha, kitty is watching birds again. Do I hear them? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s actually pretty quiet. I can hardly hear any cars, or neighbours for that matter.
It’s not that cold, actually. The cat seems to be happy. I had a lovely evening talking to friends, and ending up talking to another one until the late hours. And I still was able to sleep for a few hours. My day has enough hours for me to prepare for my birthday party tonight. And I no longer seem to be affected by this flu from earlier this week.
Without realising it, my arms ended up behind my head, head leaning against them. Lying on my back, looking around the room and thinking through what’s going on right now. I have a smile on my face. I don’t feel stress weighing me down. I don’t have to rush, or compromise anything I want to do – or whatever. And it maybe sorta kinda probably coulda have hit me … I think everything is okay right now. I haven’t felt like this in a while. I’ve come close, 2014, 2015, it had moments of pure joy and good feelings, but.. This time it’s without underlying motivation, no agenda, no reason. Life .. just .. is. And it’s good right now. For fuck sake, I think I am actually experiencing feeling happiness in its pure form. I think we can leave it at that.
What if.. creeps in, and I can ignore it. Lingering thoughts of stuff that bothered me? Yes, it bothered me – it doesn’t right now. Nothing’s lingering. Any stress about today or money or .. Nope, I can’t find any excuses. Things just ‘are’ right now. Time to get up.
Going into the bathroom I put some stuff aside first, and the cat jumped right on it. I guess I won’t be folding those clothes up today just yet. And after brushing my teeth I get reminded that I have her on the call still. I should hang up, but maybe I want to let her know that I had a nice chat at the end of a long lazy day, and that I slept nice, and all that. For some reason I feel compelled to share that with her. ha, now that I think of it. Maybe that’s just the digital form of wanting to tell her over breakfast. You should really come have breakfast with me again soon.
On the way out, and after feeding the cat, refreshing her water, and putting some stuff in the trash bin. I put my jeans on and slide the phone into my pocket. *stretches* and a huge yawn follows #goeiemorgen
My shirt slides on before I sit down, and then I put on some socks. I said it wasn’t that cold, but it’s not warm either. Sweater, shoes, and my belt follows (which the cat tries to play with, by the way). And I ask Siri to tell me my latest messages, read me my emails, and there’s nothing but a couple that I dictate a response to.
And I just sit there for a minute. Sipping on some iced tea, considering to go into town for breakfast, and it is still in the back of my head. I actually felt happiness. And I am still smiling. I made a deal with myself that if it all goes to crap any time soon, that at least I had this moment this morning. And after a challenging 2014 and 2015, the hard word in the first three weeks of this year have paid off.
She’s affected by my walking around, getting dressed, and generally making noise. Turning around in her bed a couple of times. And while I unlock the old iMac and open up iA Writer to draft this blog post, I put the phone next to me, against the screen. Considering to actually hang up now and leave you be. Before I commit to that decision I get a poke from Emily giving me hints about my birthday gift. She’s on a (successful) mission to make me as curious as possible. After a short back and forth I am about to press Publish on this blog and go for breakfast, she’s about to jump in the shower to start her day, and I am about to hang up on FaceTime to leave her in dreamland. But, I hesitate. And I remember what someone smart once said. I smile and lock this moment away as it will one day surely help me through a bit of a darker time.
I know I post negative things once every so often, and I express myself when I am stressed in a way that’s hard to understand for others. But there’s a little sanity to my chaos, please believe that. But, I felt it was nice to also share a good moment. Like this one. Thank you for reading it, I really appreciate it. Do value the little things in life, they matter.