Happy Little Things i.e. Sanity

When one is away from home, and home is defined by a sense of familiarity, belonging, and all those little things that makes one feel at home, one can find comfort in small happy things.

1. Friends. I mean the kind of friends who you instantly click with and who you can have long conversations with into the wee hours of the morning while you crash on their pull-out bed. The ones who make you tea and build you up. The ones who make you feel human. Thank you.

2. Getting mail. Today I received some tea, and not just any tea; my David's Tea, and a card from my mum. I swear that cup of tea felt like I was drinking home itself.

3. On that note, quiet afternoons reading blogs and browsing pinterest and youtube and drinking tea with biscuits and fromage.

4. Familiar songs. I listen to them on the train or when I'm walking or when I need to hear English. Songs have a way of pulling a person right back to the memories made while listening to that song in a car or on a beach or in a house or just sitting with someone you love.

5. Being able to speak a new language. Sometimes I doubt everything about my language skills but sometimes the words roll off my tongue in a delicious mix of throaty Rs and proper verb conjugation. And I feel success.

6. Remembering where you are. I came out of a Scottish pub on Sunday night and looked around at the Parisian streets in the Les Halles area and there was a creperie across the street and all of a sudden it hit me. I'm in Paris right now. It's moments like that that make you remember how amazing the things are that you're doing.

7. Building a home. Whatever that means to you. I covered my walls with familiar faces and happy things and piled books and records around me because they remind me of things that make me happy. And I was out all weekend and I felt homesick, just the tiniest bit, for my little home I had created for myself. Of course it is a temporary home, and it will never replace the original, but it is now a home in some sense of the word. I feel like I belong here, on this bed, surrounded by these things. Even just for now.

This list is incomplete of course and I will keep posting things that make me happy when they come to me because I find writing about them echoes the feeling they give.

I hope you're all happy. :)

Love always,
Coral