The Pursuit of Happiness~

No, I am not talking about the Will Smith movie.
Note the different spelling in my title & his movie title.
(His is 'The Pursuit of Happyness.')
What is it about humans that gives us a driving force to find happiness?
To keep searching & to keep pushing ourselves until we have a measure of it.
Are we depressed? Does our life suck? Stuck in a mind numbing, meaningless job perhaps?
 ***
Where do you look for happiness?
What do you look for?
Perhaps it's found in a new pair of expensive shoes, an overseas adventure, a new house, a new car.. you get my drift.
***
I was stuck in a mind numbing meaningless job where i worked in a white box aka office.
No stimulation. No fun. Laughs were few and far between and were often at someone else's downfall or expense. There was no appreciation. There were no perks. There was no commendation.
Oh and my boss liked to look at porn from his work computer.
Not the most ideal situation.
6 years i lasted there. 6 YEARS.
You want to know why i lasted that long?
I got comfortable. I was good at what i did & it came easily to me.
The hours were good & it was close to home.
Those were probably the only good things about my job.. and my boss used to buy me a coffee each morning. That was nice.
But that aside, I hated it.
My friends knew it, my family knew it, everyone knew it.
And then one day, something changed.
It was something internal & my life took an unexpected turn for good..
I decided to save up as much money as possible & go on an overseas adventure.
And i did it.
I quit my job.
And spent 4.5 months overseas on an amazing adventure.
You know what, quitting was one of the easiest things i have ever had the pleasure of doing.
The day i quit, i hadn't even planned to do it then.
Circumstance changed & my only option was to quit my job then & there.
***
Now that i have been home for a few months, i feel like the sun has started to shine on me once more.
It feels like i have escaped the depths of misery.
The longer i am away from my old job, the more i can see how much of a weight was lifted off me when i quit.
I knew i had made the right decision when my boss wasn't even sad to see me go. There was barely a reaction from him. That was the cherry on top which cemented the fact that getting out of there was the best option.
Recently, I have made some self discovery.
I am happy.
For the first time in as long as i can remember. I feel happy.
Happy. Content. Relaxed.
And i am petrified that it will all be snatched away from me.
xox

JUST TEXT ME ALREADY! ARGH

You know when you don't hear from someone for ages & it drives you WILDLY insane~

Friend. Family member. Loved one. That cutie you gave your phone number to..

No text, no phone call, no email, no snail mail, no carrier pigeon messages.

And being the stubborn dutch girl that you are..

I mean.. being the stubborn girl that you are..

I mean.. being the girl that you are..

I mean.. being YOU.. whoever you might be..

You refuse to contact them first.

Out of spite? Yes. Ofcourse. What other reason even exists?

Ahh, so lame. So very lame!

It's such high school level stupidity.

But you know that if you leave it long enough you figure they'll have to contact you first.

Wont they?

It's almost like that game you play at school, 'Mercy,' where you hold your friends hands, turn your arms inside out & whoever hurts & yells out 'Mercy' first, is the loser? Even if you are hurting, you still refuse to yell out because you don't want to lose..

Why do we play this silly little mind trip game?

Or should that be.. why do I play this silly little mind trip game?
I haven't the faintest idea!
As time goes by you start to think about other people, places, life, planning that trip overseas..
You may even totally forget about said person who hasn't contacted you.
Who??
Oh yeah, i used to know them. I wonder what they're up to these days..
And then casually minding your own business one evening while sitting on your friends couch, your phone buzzes.
'Oooh!! A text! I wonder who it's from!?'
Oh. It's you. Really? YOU. That's so damn random!
You sit there staring at your phone for what feels like millennium's.. REALLY?!
I just got THAT message?! From you?!
That's awesome!
So nice to hear from you, it's been a while.
I can't help but wonder why you are now suddenly wanting back in my life though, ahh the plot thickens.
The moral of this story? There is no moral of this story. It's just a story. And it's also a complete contradiction of last weeks post.
What?
You have to mix it up & keep it interesting!
xox

those unexpected phone calls..

..that make you realise people actually do care.

And after you hang up, you want to have a little cry about it because that phone call (or text message) came at *just* the right time.

And the person who made the phone call/text has absolutely no idea just how much you really needed it & appreciated it.

Whether you realised it at the time or not, you really did need that little gesture of love & friendship more than even you knew.

You know how sometimes when you hit a bit of a flat spot in your little life & all you feel like doing is crawling into a hole & hibernating hoping that it will all go away or fix itself..

But instead of dwelling in your own dark hatred for life & your insignificant problems, you push through it, suck it up & get on with life?

You might even feel like no one has even noticed your lack of 'sparkiness' as of late.

For some reason you think you can fool people into a false sense of believing that you are A-ok if you just keep smiling, even if you're drowning on the inside.

Comfort is found in the thought that you can just fly under the radar, put on a facade to protect yourself for as long as you need to~ admit it, you've done this before haven't you? :)

Fake it until you make it?

There are a thousand thoughts, feelings, emotions racing through your mind.

Love, life, work, family, friends.. the list could go on forever.

Where do you even start to pick yourself up from?

By this stage you're probably tricking yourself into believing that there's nothing wrong.

***

I was chatting to a friend just the other day about all of this.

(Confession: that conversation was my inspiration for today's post. You know who you are.)

They had noticed someone wasn't their usual effervescent self & they seemed a bit flat the last few times they'd seen them, so what did they do?

Picked up their phone, rang them up & asked if they were ok.

'Hey, you seemed a bit flat the last few times i saw you.. is everything ok?'

A good old fashioned phone call. Straight up.

It doesn't need to be anything major.

Not a long drawn out DnM for 3hours on a Monday night.

Just the phone call in itself can put your mind at ease knowing that someone out there actually noticed & took the initiative to check up on you.

It's the best. And by that, i mean BEST.

xox

Taste of Summer*

*To my friends in the Northern Hemisphere who are about to head into a long, cold, dark winter... i suggest you stop reading right about now.
*Ahhh, summer. What bliss. Just around the corner... tomorrow, to be precise. 
I cannot wait! Finally after a gruelling year.
Holidays! Friends! Fun! Love!
Sun! Surf! Sand! Short Shorts! Red Bikinis!
What is it about summer that makes everyone so happy?
*Is it sipping cocktails with the girls, giggling & watching the world go by?
*Ice cold beers with the boys?
*Those balmy nights spent wandering the city streets with your nearest & dearest?
*Staying up to watch the sunrise over the horizon?
*Days spent snoozing on the beach?
*Or maybe its just the lack of clothes & amount of hot bodies to check out that give us all a secret smile?
Your guess is as good as mine :)
But there is no denying it, there is something about summer that puts us in a good mood.
Bring on the Vitamin D.
Even if you've had a terrible day, someone has treated you like rubbish or you are just feeling a bit downers on life.. 
For some reason, summer just makes it easier to deal with things like that.
A couple of days ago i headed into the the Big Smoke, aka the city, to meet up with a small bunch of friends for some lazy strawberry/apple ciders & vodka/raspberry's on the balcony of Madame Brussels.
http://www.madamebrussels.com/
It was brilliant.
Cool drinks, warm balmy day & good chats. The best!
Having daylight savings on our side, we wandered through the city, grabbed some takeaway pizza's & headed for the Botanical Gardens.
It was perfection.

To chance encounters.
This will be an unforgettable summer.
xox
ps- having said all of that... yesterday i was traipsing around the city in short shorts & today i am back to wearing jeans & boots. I was even greeted with thunder & rain when i woke up today *sigh. Thankyou Melbourne for being predictably unpredictable.