happiness – Page 3 – Prattle Peach

dominoes and Dostoevsky

My god, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?
Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

I feel like I spent the past year setting up dominoes for hours and hours (read: months and months) and now it’s finally time to knock the first domino over and watch everything that I so carefully planned fall into place.

Some things aren’t an explosive firework result, but more like a steady match. Maybe most things. A slow and steady burn yields better results than a wild blaze.

It’s easy to come up with dreams and live them out in your head. But how revolutionary it is to bring them to fruition and see them manifest.

Now, after waiting and plowing and sowing and watering, I feel like I’m seeing the sprouts grow. The foundation was laid, the work is done.

I think I’m going to let myself be excited. Let myself get my hopes up because I worked for it, goddamnit. I worked so hard for so many months and then I got to rest for a bit and now we’re back with new challenges but I’m excited to face them because I know I can. (read: I KNOW I CAN.)

I just finished my to-do list and it’s time to make a new one.

warming my hands on bridges I’ve burnt, and why that’s okay according to Aristotle

I lost a couple friends this past year and I didn’t give a shit.

And I thought,
Am I sad enough about this?

I thought,
Did I really care about those friendships or did I waste my time on people who I shouldn’t have for too long?

I thought,
Am I being heartless?

I thought,
Will people think I’m a bad friend for being honest about not caring that much?

Then I remembered one of my favorite philosophy classes from college about relationships, and how different philosophers have defined them.

Aristotle said there are three types of friendships: one based on utility, one based on pleasure, and one on mutual appreciation of each other’s values.

A friendship based on utility is basically a relationship that lasts as long as you’re both getting something out of it. Like a transaction. Sort of like a coworker who you’re only work friends with for as long as you’re at that job. Once you leave, you don’t see them again and they don’t see you again but you mutually benefitted from being positive to each other while you were at work. Aristotle said this is popular with older people.

A friendship based on pleasure is more emotional and supposed to usually be the shortest relationship. You stay friends for as long as you both enjoy the same thing, and you break up as soon as one person doesn’t.

Aristotle said the pleasure friendship is more common between younger people because as we grow we tend to change our interests and values, so we grow out of pleasure friendships quicker than the other types.

The third type of friendship is based on virtues, and it has the strongest connections and lasts the longest. The best friendships should be based on appreciation of character — not on a transactional (utility or pleasure) value — and shape our lives for the better.

I think this really explains why I wasn’t sad about the friends that I lost this year.

One was a girl who I went out drinking with and talked about guys we were dating. We would meet up and both hop on dating apps and squeal about who we had matched with, who we’d met, and who we were dating for a while, but once I stopped caring about those things we ended up really not having anything else in common. We didn’t even like the same music or shows. Our friendship was a pleasure transaction, and as soon as I stopped using dating apps we stopped being friends.

I ended up not missing her at all as soon as we stopped being friends because she didn’t really add anything else to my life. Our values weren’t the same at all: we couldn’t relate about our jobs, our education level was different, and we had different political views. The death of our friendship was short-lived and unmourned. I actually felt better knowing I didn’t have to talk to her again, because I didn’t want to talk about the same things we used to.

Aristotle said that when you have a friendship based on appreciating each other’s values, the other two types of friendship naturally combine into it, too. Thing of your diehard BFFs that you’ll drive to the airport, invite over to watch 90 Day Fiancé, and help out during a hard time. They’re beneficial and pleasurable, and you also respect and care for them.

I’m extremely thankful for all of my top tier friends and I’m cool with warming my hands on the bridges I’ve burned with my limited time only buddies.

I think a butterfly just flew out of my mouth

I can’t stop thinking about the butterfly thing, where he really said I think a butterfly just flew out of my mouth. And it doesn’t make me feel how it did at all any more, but it is so easy to remember how it used to make me feel. Like I’m watching myself act it out in a little movie.

I remember how much I reread that text over and over and over and over and I could have survived off of just knowing that someone felt that way about anyone. I only need three hours of sleep and a daydream when I feel like that.

Where you keep starting to do something and just forget right in the middle of it because he said he got butterflies from thinking about you so you drop everything and lay on the floor to ground yourself before you go flying into the Milky Way. And every time you pass by a mirror you go !!!! She Knows Something I’m Afraid To Think and you give yourself that little smile and can’t even let your own eyes meet or you’ll lose your grip on gravity yet again.

How strange it is that we can even get to that point. Where all you feel is !!!! and the butterflies in your tummy fly up to your heart and out of your throat and out of your mouth right in the middle of the airport and everyone’s wondering how did a monarch butterfly land right here in Terminal 3? But you hardly even notice because of all the butterflies still trying to make your feet lift right off of the ground so you swallow a thousand times until you feel about 60% certain that everybody can’t tell you’re in Big L.

He sent it from the airport. We weren’t texting before and I didn’t know how to reply. I probably read it a hundred times before I even thought about how to answer and the funny thing is I can’t remember how I answered at all. Some memories are like that. I remember exactly how I felt and how I pictured him sending the message and how it made me feel for the longest time, but I don’t know what I said back. Probably something mediocre because how can you beat a lyricist at the word game and in general I never know what to say just that I feel too much of it.

The picture is from Jude Guench, from a short story called The Butterfly Eater. I feel it is much more appropriate to how I feel now and in a way I feel like our stories parallel each other’s.

boundaries

Having boundaries in general, with a lot of people in your life, is good.

“I love people. I love my family, my children ….. but inside myself is a place where I live all alone, where I renew my springs that never dry up…..”
Pearl S. Buck

I’ve lived in the world of right and wrong for so long that I forgot the grey area, the place where most things exist. Now I have accepted the ability to realize that most things are not mutually exclusive. There is good, there is bad, but nobody and nothing is 100% both. There is peace within the chaos and there is chaos when there is peace. I know that now, and it is within my power to accept both in my heart.

By being able to focus on things that are not people-oriented, I am able to grow as a person. By not focusing on pleasing someone, or trying to stay in contact at all times, I am focusing on myself.

Setting up boundaries isn’t bad. You don’t owe it to anyone to be available 24/7 for whenever they need you. You do owe it to yourself to available 24/7 for yourself when you need you.

One of the best things I have done over the past couple months is turn off notifications on my social media. I set a boundary between me and others, and I feel like I have a healthier relationship with my phone now because of it. It also makes me happier to see what my friends are up to, because I genuinely want to know. I’m not just mindlessly switching between apps for no reason.

Set boundaries, be happy!

impacts

The answer to most of my security questions online is my first grade best friend’s middle name. I used to live in a suburb of Seattle called Puyallup before moving to California in fourth grade. After I moved we never spoke again but I still know her middle name.

There are people I don’t talk to anymore that have had such an impact on my life. I still wear a friend from 8th grade’s P.E. shirt to bed sometimes because we accidentally switched shirts at a sleepover and never ended up giving them back.

I still listen to a band that my very first boyfriend showed me, and it’s one of my favorites.

And I still make a crunchy tuna casserole that one of my elementary school friend’s mom showed me. Half of their casserole was made without peas because her dad didn’t like them but the rest of the family did. I wonder if they still do that.

Our lives are made up of so many people, and sometimes you keep pieces of them long after they have left your life.

At the same time, there are so many lives that you have left some kind of impact on like this. I wonder what parts of me are alive in someone else that I have no idea about.

reading books, listening to music

How lucky I feel, to be in my body again. How lovely I feel not to have to pretend.
Hayley Williams (Watch Me While I Bloom)

I didn’t want to work out this morning but I pushed myself to do whatever my best is today and I feel soooo good. Like my mood has been so intensely good lately!

This weekend I’m staying home, I got a few books and I think I’m just going to read them all. I know I need to go to the store at some point and meal prep all my lunches for the week or I’ll end up ordering out and feeling like a slug and right now I feel like that speedy snail from the snail mail game. I don’t want this empowering, uplifting feeling to go away.

My local bookstore is back open so I bought one book from each of my favorite authors. If you have a book recommendation please leave it in the comments or send me a DM @prattlepeach on Instagram. I neglected to read as much as I should have been earlier this year so I’m making up for it now.

The books I bought are Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs, Damned by Chuck Palahniuk, and The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.

When I was in high school I read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and I felt this itch to go explore the world. Not fall in love with a pedophile and live with a crooked therapist and his family, but at least go to New York and stand in the middle of Times Square.

My freshman year of high school I also emailed a fan letter to Christopher Moore and he replied and I have loved him and his work ever since. He writes how I think, or maybe I think this way because I’ve been reading his work since I was 14? I am all of books I’ve ever read, I think.

My favorite band is Panic! at the Disco, and the song Time to Dance is based off the book Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I met him a couple times and he’s the coolest person ever, and his books are so intricate and I usually have to read them a couple times each to fully understand them.

I’m definitely happiest after I’ve read a book, done some HIIT, and had an iced americano. That’s an ideal day alone with myself.

I also want to go to the beach maybe, or just take a drive on PCH and listen to music. I feel open and excited, after so many weeks of not feeling good. I think there is potential in the air, and I’m going to try and live in this moment as much as possible.

living deliciously

learning to: cook and take life’s challenges gracefully.
talking to: an old friend and a younger brother.
all while: wearing high heels.

The universe feels right. Yesterday I visited a local botanist (apothecary?) from whom I bought two spider plants and two fittonias. My cat likes to chew on plants so he was also very excited to invite them into our apartment.

I was thinking of naming them after goddesses that relate to nature – Hecate, Demeter, Persephone, Gaia.

Tonight I FaceTimed NYC herself and she gave me another cooking lesson, this was #3.

NYC always makes me feel like I can do something about my life. I miss getting matcha lattes with her and spending hours shopping and talking about anything and everything. She has the best taste in music, coffee, and in life.

I am going to learn how to cook real food from scratch and not just drink two cans of Diet Coke. I made a roasted tomato sauce and poured it over a bed of baked chicken and pasta made from brown rice and black beans. It was such a success.

Today I wore high heels all day and I felt good. The backs of my legs were sore from the fire hydrant & leg lift combos in yesterday’s workout, but it was the good kind of sore where you feel proud of your efforts.

I have a four day weekend, and I plan to stay up really late and watch movies and do things that make me feel good. It is an achievement when we do not allow the actions of others to take away our spark or our self confidence. It feels great to have it wrapped around me like a cloak. Delicious actually. I believe the universe keeps challenging me but there must be a good reason why so I won’t take a single thing for granted – good and bad.

My little brother is coming to stay the weekend, so it’ll be fun to have someone to go to parks and beaches with. I want to explore somewhere new with someone old. I am taking a holiday from doing things that are the latter with someone who is the former.