The secret to happiness.

We have started walking into uncharted territory.  The days keep going by and now, many of the first big milestones that I had imagined having with Mila have passed.  It feels like we're only now getting into the real After.

I don't know how this part goes.

D says things have gone back to "normal", and so what?  And now what?  We're past the delirious first phase of grief, the awkward encounters with people who don't know have dwindled, the conversations have turned to other things, we're frankly pretty functional again... but HEY IT STILL FEELS SHITTY WTF IS IT JUST LIKE THIS FOREVER AND EVER??  I think the short answer, the answer that we just kind of have to live with now, is YES.  As good as everything else in our lives gets, the fact that Mila didn't make it will always be a horrible, unfair, tragic, shitty, and permanent thing and there's just no rationalizing or getting around that.

On the flight back from Hawaii a couple weekends ago, I listened to a few TED talks about happiness by psychologists, researchers, even a Benedictine monk.  Some of the (paraphrased) insights that stuck with me:

• Sorry, there is no secret to happiness.  Invest more time in your social relationships.  Worry less about accumulating things and more about accumulating experiences.  It's like asking for the secret to dieting - there isn't one.
• Less stuff leads to more time leads to more happiness.
• People are universally happier when they are fully engaged - in the present moment, not mind-wandering - with whatever they're doing, even if that task is not particularly pleasant (e.g., commuting).
• Individual life events, whether good (new job, new house, winning the lottery, getting married) or bad (getting fired, getting divorced, getting injured), do not have nearly as large an impact in terms of duration and intensity on long-term happiness as people expect them to have.  Research shows most life traumas, with a few exceptions, have zero impact on people's baseline happiness after three months.  (Blogger's note: I think I can authoritatively say that having a stillborn baby is one of the exceptions.  But point noted, TED talk.)  Humans are resilient.
• It is not happiness that makes us grateful; it's gratefulness that makes us happy.  To be happy, we must become aware that every moment is a given moment, not one that we have earned or bought or was assured to us; and therefore it is a gift.

Luckily, I think my brain chemistry naturally skews happy.  When bad thoughts start to visit on me, that's probably one of the biggest things that keeps me from sliding (or deliberately throwing myself) into a black hole of despair, and I find myself doing some of these things out of instinct.  Not always right away, but eventually I get there.

Here are some things I do or have done to make myself happier (no particular order).

1. Remind myself that I am alive!  And healthy.  And so is D.  And so are many people who are important to us.
2. Observe the sunshine.
3. Quit a job that had become unhealthy for me.
4. Ogle D.
5. Made new friends, and kept some old ones.
6. Ignored other people's problems that I can't fix.
7. Gossiped about other people's problems that I can't fix.
8. Crafted.
9. Gave people presents for no reason.
10. Bought a slow cooker and made chicken soup.
11. Marvel at the landscape around SF.
12. Cooked for D when he was sick.
13. Hiked Mount Tam with L.
14. Stayed up late to watch the Game of Thrones finale.
15. Watch standup comedy, Colbert, or John Oliver.
16. Shop for clothes and books.
17. Threw out a lot of old papers and filed/organized the rest.
18. Wrote down and put away toxic thoughts, rather than carry them in my head.
19. Unfollowed or unfriended people on Facebook if their posts bothered me or I couldn't remember who they were.
20. Ordered a drink that came in a coconut.
21. Listened to music I liked in high school/college.
22. Felt happy for other people.

Re: #21, sometimes the music is hard because even songs I've been listening to for years can suddenly sound like they mean something different now.

A long December and there's reason to believe 
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving
Now the days go by so fast. 

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass.

Or, even more to the point,

So can you understand
Why I want a daughter while I'm still young?
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before this damage is done

But if it's too much to ask, if it's too much to ask
Then send me a son.

When that happens, all I can do is skip to the next track or do something else on the list.  Shit goes on, I guess.  We've evolved to get back to the baseline.