I found it!

My latest posts (that have had way too long intervals) have been about seeking happiness. And guess what? Good news: I've found it again! It was missing for two years, but now we are happily together, and I sincerely hope I will never lose it again. If I do, please direct me back to this post.

Tonight, I will tell you how I found it. Step by step.

1) I tried to follow my instructions I made up in this blog post. It kind of helped, vitamins certainly made me feel better and seeing people gave me a reason to live. I guess that was a reasonable start.

2) I cried. Well yeah, in the end it was hard to keep trying. I felt crappiest ever. I really wanted to give up. I stopped eating vegetables. I stopped eating. I only got up to go to things I could not avoid, like work. I didn't see any friends. I went to school but stopped talking because no one could hear me. I felt invisible.

3) I stopped crying. One day I just noticed that the sun was shining outside. The winter was over and the spring had arrived. And somehow I had missed it! I had re-found the world of youtube. I had found inspiring people who filmed youtube videos. They were talking about reasons to keep trying.

4) I did some time travelling. I found my mp3-player that I haven't really updated since I was 17. There are a couple of newer songs from my life 3 years ago, but nothing recent. And I listened to it for 3 hours when I was on a bus. And while I was sitting there listening to music I realised several things. 

First one was that listening to music is useful when your head is so tired of doing all that thinking that you just don't know how to process it anymore. Then you can just turn on music and the lyrics will do all the thinking for you! All you have to do is to either agree or disagree with the singer. 

The second thing I realised was that music somehow saves all the big emotions. Listening to the music reminded me of all the emotions I felt when I was listening to those songs back in the day. And man, teenagers have a lot of feelings. But it was good. I have learned, I have experienced things. And over all I was really happy when I was a teenager. It reminded me of how to be happy. It's like those songs had the exact information I needed to be happy again.

Maija Vilkkumaa told me that I shouldn't be sad, and that one needs to make the effort to be happy. Daniel Powter told me that it's ok to have a bad day sometimes. The Bad Shepherds told me that it's silly to sit here eyes filling up with lonely tears when there is a whole wide world out there. Caedmon's Call told me that it's important to try even if what I was going to do could be the mistake of my life. And obviously, Katy Perry told me that she kissed a girl and liked it.

Maija Vilkkumaa sings:

Tuija oli vain seitsemän
mut tiesi jo sen
että vaivaa täytyy nähdä
jos tahtoo olla onnellinen
jos itse ei hanki itselleen ystävää
sitä yksin jää

in English:

Tuija was only seven

But already knew

that you need to make an effort

if you want to be happy

if you don't acquire a friend for yourself

you will be alone

Mostly, the music reminded me that being happy after all was up to me. I would suffer the most by being unhappy. I had to be who I wanted to be.

5) I woke up happy. I suddenly remember what being happy was like. I hadn't been so sincerely happy for 2 years. The fact that I didn't have anything extra messing up with my body, and that the things that were really making me anxious and unhappy were finally over probably helped the most, but in addition I had found things to be inspired by and things to look forward to.

If everyone would have 3 things in their life that inspire them, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't be happy. Things to do, people to love, hobbies, inspiring thoughts, future plans, stuff to look forward to, good food are all things that help us to make the most out of our life. It's almost summer, and this summer could be the best summer of our life!

Okay, to be honest I am not entirely sure why I lost my happiness in the first place, but I think the reason was a combination of medical reasons, loneliness, stress and just a miss-balance of bad times and good times. But I hope I won't lose it again. Inspiration and lovely people have always been the key to happiness. I just had forgotten about it. Probably the best thing in the world thing is to be inspired by good food in a company of lovely people.

Time travel.

"A lot can change in 5 years", I claimed to my friend when we were thinking about our future. She reflected it by thinking about her life 5 years ago, and said that it was quite similar. She was studying then, and still is. Her best friends were the same and her hopes and worries were the same. So can everything really change in 5 years?

I thought about my life 5 years ago. I was on a study holiday before my matriculation exams.

Old's Dance 2008.

Before the holiday I had danced "Olds' Dance" (a dance held in February to celebrate that the 2nd years are the oldest in school because the 3rd years have left the school for their study holiday) with a friend of mine who hadn't found a partner. In our high school there were more girls than boys, so there was a problem to find partners for all the girls. I was the first girl to dance as a boy in our school. It was shocking if I am to believe my friend who told me that everyone was whispering when I walked in the hall that morning. But next year there were a lot more girls dancing with girls. Dressed as girls that time, but that's how it should be - too much hustle to maintain heteronormativity and to look for boys the school did not have.

Back then my number 1 hobby was theatre. I spent so much time there, it felt like home. Theatre gave me courage, helped me to believe in myself and allowed me to do crazy things, such as, sing to people, walk in ridiculous shoes, and talk to stuffed squirrels.

Independence Day Play featuring a stuffed squirrel.

The study holiday was relaxing. I drank a lot of tea and played with my new Furby that I had always wanted and finally bought one when I was 18! I was also hanging out with my cat who had grown bigger than I expected. I travelled around Finland to see my friends. I probably also did some studying.

Study moment with a friend and our Furbys.

Those were some of the happiest days of my life. So full of life, a bit stressed out about the exams that in the end went well, and hopeful for the future. 

Back then my favourite place in the world was Oxford where I had been on a month long language course in July 2006. That probably was the best month of my life. I had got to know amazing people who became my friends, I did so many exciting and new things everyday and saw places I didn't think even could exist in real life. And I wanted to go back.

Oxford in 2006.

Inspired by my time in Oxford, I had applied to Scotland, but didn't think my English was good enough to get in, so I watched all the Friends and Gilmore Girls episodes to learn the language.

Gilmore Girls 1st season.

I still didn't think I would ever be accepted into University, and was very surprised when I got my acceptance and offer letter. But by then I had watched enough American TV to have realistic ideas of my university life was going to be like. And I had learned to understand English, but on my first night in halls I learned that it maybe wasn't enough. I was trying to tell one of my neighbours about ugly curtains without actually remembering the word "curtains". It was a complete disaster. I spoke very fast - just like they do in Gilmore Girls - and with a very heavy accent. No wonder the girl stopped saying hello to me in the corridor after the first week.

Has my life changed?

Well, I am definitely as clueless about my future as I was 5 years ago. I still believe that July 2006 was the happiest month of my life. My best friends 5 years ago are still the best and I wish them to remain as important to me for the rest of my life. But I have also made some new friends.

In five years I have finally learned to speak English. I have studied myself a degree, seen many new places on earth, widened my understanding of living, but got stupider. Looking back has made me realise that I had forgotten that person that I was 5 years ago, and I would like to get some aspects of her back. I would like to still be as brave and spontaneous as I was back then.

Do I think my life will be very different in 5 years? I don't know. I am not sure if I want it to be much different. I hope it will be good. I hope I won't change too much, I hope I will be happy. I have absolutely no idea what will happen, which is exactly what I would have said 5 years ago if someone would have asked where I would see myself in 5 years. Now that 5 years has taken me here, and I am surprised to be here. I am ready to be surprised again in 5 years time.

I'm going dancing tonight.

I don't write this blog as often as I would like and all of my blog posts have become ramblings about how I would like to live a happier life and how people should care about each other and do more things they would like to do. And guess what I am going to write today! Yes, exactly the same stuff, because I still think it's important. And this is my blog and you are voluntarily reading it.

My last post was about how I would like this year to be happy because last year was absolute rubbish. And that is more easily said than done. But there are a couple of things I am trying to do to reach this goal.

1) Work out what gets me down.

Of course depression is more complicated than this, but depressed people are allowed to enjoy life too. And most of us are unfortunate enough to know a lot of idiots. Which is why we should look for people whose company we actually enjoy and whom we love and spend as much time with them as possible to balance out those rubbish times with the scumbags whose company we cannot avoid.

2) Eat good things. 

I've discovered avocados. They are my new favourite thing. I am getting a vegetable bag through my university's Environment and Ethics committee. This means that every week I give them £6 and they give me edible things that I have never seen before. Here, for instance, is a fennel. I had never even heard of them, and suddenly I had one.

I might post a cooking related blog post as some point. I know all of you are anxious to try out my awesome recipes!

I also think you should be allowed to eat things you enjoy, and not only try and eat ridiculous healthy stuff that you have never even heard of before. So if you want that blueberry muffin, you go and eat the blueberry muffin. As long as you did not skip lunch.

I also believe in supplements, but instead of going with the multivitamin, I have filled a cupboard with loads of different things. Now I can choose what I feel like taking each day. Today I took C vitamin, D vitamin, iron and tyrosine.

3) Don't become a sofa potato.

I love my sofa. And it is freezing cold outside. It is either snowing or raining some icy stuff out there. But I am forcing myself to go out and do things and to gain life experiences. Last week I went bowling and tried out dodgems. Bowling involved throwing heavy balls on a long and slidy piece of floor and trying not to throw myself with it. A bonus was if the ball hit the cones that you are meant to knock over. Dodgems are little electric cars that did not feel much like cars, and crazy university students would drive around them really fast and bump into each other. They were probably meant for kids but it was surprisingly fun!

This week I have eaten pancakes, laughed, forced myself to go to pub for a drink with strangers and got on stage to pretend that I haven't forgotten what acting is. Today I am going swimming and dancing. I should probably leave now.

Basically, I still think that a world is a wonderful place but that sometimes the happiness is just very well hidden. I will keep looking for it. Let me know if you have seen it recently.

Fireworks

So, the year 2012 is history and 2013 is here. I witnessed the arrival of the year 2013 in London, at the bank of Thames, watching fireworks shot from the London Eye.

But I am not going to talk about fireworks as such. But fireworks are a happy thing, that's probably why so many people go and see them. Although, in London, the Italian girl standing in the crowd next to me and my friend really wasn't happy. She probably didn't enjoy the crowd and was wearing silly shoes. But the other people next to as who were drinking champagne seemed very happy. Maybe life should involve more champagne and less ending up places where we don't want to be.

In 2013, I would like to be happy. The last time was really happy, was around the last New Year, when I was in Wales. But to be honest, 2012 was pretty rubbish. Mostly because I was unable to really enjoy anything. A lot of exciting things did happen: I graduated, went to Alaska, travelled around Scotland and started a new degree. But I wasn't able to feel excited about anything the way I know I used to be excited about things. I would like to be as happy as little kids when they run around and laugh. Just because I am not a child anymore, doesn't mean I am not allowed to feel sincerely happy and merry.

After the autumn term at university, half of which I was unable to concentrate on neither studying or social life, all I really needed was a break. I had had enough health problems, and I needed to find a way to enjoy life again. I started my holiday by pretty much (without really meaning to) sleeping through Christmas. I had been so tired without realising it. I had been on medication that made me extremely tired and I had been really stressed about whether I would be able to hand in my assignments. Sleep was definitely something I needed.

By the New Year I had a bit more energy and spent a couple of days wandering around London with one of my best friends. We had cheap chicken burgers for breakfast every morning and Chinese take away and pizza for dinner. We exploited our Oyster card by travelling around London on the underground, overground and buses. I bought police box shaped salt and pepper shakers at midnight. I tasted some bubble tea in Chinatown. It was like a non-milky milkshake with some slimy balls in it.

Today I had some red curry in a Glaswegian Thai restaurant. I like spicy food and would like to be able  to eat it. I also bought lipstick. I would like to be able to be brave enough to wear make-up more. I want to believe that if I do more things that I find fascinating, exciting and generally enjoyable, I will get more out of life. Although the massive joylessness of 2012 was partly or mostly due to other reasons, such as, depression, synthetic hormones, worries, generic health problems and loneliness, I would like to think that there are ways I can improve things this year.

I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen in my life this year. I am not sure if I am ready. But I feel better than I have felt for about a year. And that is a good sign.

Here is a music video about how even if you feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, you can still find the spark in you and open the door that leads you on the perfect road.

Yes, I do love Katy Perry and refer to her as my "favourite hottie" when I am really tired and have drank too much Irn Bru, but still the message of this song is pretty amazing. It gives me hope.

The sea turned violent

I haven't been writing recently due to a mixture of reasons. Real life has not been as amazing this autumn as I thought it would be and I was hoping that something wonderful would happen so that I could write about it, instead of having to write about bras or to write something that will be completely contradictory to my previous post. There are other reasons as well, one of them being that I have finally experienced the mysterious migraines – I used to wonder what they were like when I was little and heard about them the first time. They sounded so adult like back then. Now after falling totally behind with my studies due to a two-week long, intense experience of them I feel no need to deepen my empirical knowledge about them.

I am not quite sure what I hoped to achieve this autumn but I feel like my life has not been as exciting as I hoped it would be. I went to uni, I went to work, I ate, I took D vitamin tablets, I slept. I carried on doing the same things, everyday, as well as I could while life kept throwing other emotional and physical challenges on my way. Sometimes I felt tired and lonely. I had “too much” uni work to do, and hadn't managed to make new friends when the old ones had left the town. Sometimes, but more and more rarely, I found an evening or a lunch time to meet up with an old friend. I kept dreaming about holidays when I wouldn't have to do all the everyday life things and I would have energy to do enjoyable things.

But life is hard and everyone seems quite unhappy. Most of the conversations I have involve people complaining about work, weather, life, politics, relationships, people in general or about anything really. Why is it so difficult for us to be happy? Is being happy something too childish for us? Kids are happy, but when we grow up we have to be all responsible and there is no space for happiness, we just need to worry about things.

I do all this myself as well. A lot of the time I am not really happy. I complain a lot. And I worry. I would like to know how to be happy. I would like to write blog posts about how to be happy. But right now I have no idea. I have faint memories of once, a long time ago, sitting on my bed in the middle of the night, listening to songs about marshmallows. I remember being happy back then.

I talked about this to a friend, who pointed out one thing about seeking happiness. When people discover something that will make them happy, and decide to act on it to reach out for it, there is normally a large group of unhappy people – silently or vocally – judging them.

The reason of this blog post is not to make everyone depressed about all the unhappiness in the world, although I am very distressed about it at the moment. I might get over this and discover little happy things, such as wrist warmers*, and start blogging about them again. This post probably has no other meaning but to make people aware of the fact that they should try and enjoy even the little things in life that might seem meaningless (like woolly socks) more and take care of each other even if they feel that they are too busy. Because if they feel too busy, they are probably not too busy. Have a tea break with that person you are always too busy to talk to.

*My hands and feet have never been this cold before. I got rid of migraines but the side-effect of these pills is that my already bad peripheral circulation is getting even worse.