Happiness is the old song on the radio from 2005, your dirty little secret, your unknown jam. It plays in a store, it comes up on shuffle, it hits you like a nostalgic blast from the past. It is fighting the urge to break out in dance in public, or letting the music take you as you writhe around in privacy, if you are lucky enough. It is memories sequestered to songs, a melody from long ago, a better time.

Happiness is wiping dirty glasses, as if the air were magically filtered, as if you rid yourself of a visual obstruction that you didn’t even know existed. It is clarity, it is lucidity, and it is precision. The world is cast in a brighter light.

Happiness is waking up naturally. It’s that moment when you’re caught in between the dream and the awakening. It is gradual, as if the sunlight slowly prods you awake from behind your closed eyelids. It is completely embracing dry mouth and eye gunk and morning breath and ratchet hair and numb limbs. And then you slowly roll over on your back and look up at the ceiling sleepily, with nowhere to go and nowhere to be.

Happiness is tradition and routine, lazily enforced. It is Friday night phone calls and Sunday morning bubble tea runs that can be easily skipped if the circumstances so require it. Looking forward to something, the anticipation builds up. Sometimes we forget why we do it, we just keep on since we see no reason to stop. It is me-time and we-time, and it should never be forgone. 

Happiness is getting in the shower after reluctantly convincing yourself to do so. It is the endless stream of purity trickling down your body, it is the luxurious scent of Dove and Herbal Essences and Pantene and Garnier Fructis and everything in between. It is loofahs and sponges, and time passes by in globs of soap. The hardest part about getting in is climbing out; once we’re here, we never want to leave. The pruniest fingers in the world wouldn’t convince me.

Happiness is a piece of paper in front of you, blank and beckoning. It is begging for intervention. Write, draw, scribble or swirl, fill the margins and shade in the corners. As cliche as it sounds, letting your mind wander and your pen make its way across the page in this way and that promotes a nomadic state of mind. Here, your mind is flowing; there is no such thing as a coherent train of thought…

Happiness is the little reading space in the corner of the room, with a few old pillows and blankets for sheer comfort. It is the little desk where you put your cup of coffee, where you rest your computer as you scroll endlessly through your tumblr feed, and where you write your heart out into a purple journal. It is the makeshift reading nook, devoid of fancy plushes. It is where your favorite novel is within reach, where the light is not blinding but instead, a soft glow, that starts in your special corner and gradually pervades the room.