How to Be Happy

1.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about how
hollow
it makes you feel.

2.
Smile. Just the act of smiling helps to improve your mood. It increases serotonin levels in the brain. Or dopamine. Or norepinephrine. One of the neurotransmitters that relates to
happiness.
Think about how much lovelier you look when you’re smiling. Think about how it delights you that onlookers see you, and wonder what you’re so happy about when the weather is like this.
Think of, in contrast, how little it delighted you to know that when strangers saw you yesterday, they could see a girl with an aching heart and a fragile psyche.

3.
Smile at a stranger. Revel in how before they can even stop to ask themselves why you’re smiling at them, they smile back.
Maybe you didn’t make their day, but you made it a little bit better.

4.
You’re still thinking about it. Okay, so clearly you can’t just disregard it entirely.
It happened, and it mattered.
If the thought of his fingers around your throat and the way he crushed your breasts against your ribcage still bring up a reflexive gag or a tortured gasp, that is fine. Think about it. Process it, and disregard any negativity. Process it. Feel it. Complete it.

5.
Think about how good you look today. Today, you dressed as a Warrior, but everyone else thinks you’re a femme fatale or maybe a sex worker.
These boots you wear are pointy, sharp, and dangerous. Pointy like elf ears, like elf weapons, like elf armour. You’re an elven warrior. You’re captain of that mythic army in your head.
You have powers.
You can bring out the sun.

6.
Don’t think about how nice it was just to smell him again. Or how gratifying it was when he put his arm over you and buried his face in the small of your back.
Don’t think about how it hurt when he pulled away, either. None of these things matter. You’re not allowed to let it matter. None of it was ever allowed to matter.

7.
You’re skipping psych class, because you think your professor would know what
happened
to you.

7.
You hang out off campus. You see a squirrel running along a telephone line. See him stop, chitter, look behind himself and then back ahead. See him charge onward. Smile as you realize that you just witnessed this creature have a thought.
Wonder what it was.
Delight yourself with all the tiny possibilities.

8.
You’re still thinking about it. Okay, so try to make it positive. You did your best. You lost this round, but you were sick of his game.
You wanted to care about him, but he makes it so hard.
You wanted to sever anyways; he’s just making it so much easier.


9.
Your elf boots are loud and give authority to every quickened step you take. They’re comfortable, too, even though they’re severe. Smile to yourself with every assertive, thundering stride.

10.
So you’re tired. You decided to stay in bed a bit longer this morning and cry a little bit. You didn’t have time to make coffee. That is fine. You think your barista is a total babe anyways. He’s skinny, smokes cigarettes, and is elegant.
You think he looks like a bird.
Delight in the way he’s already making your order when he sees you in line.
Give him a big tip, like every day, because he makes your coffee just how you like it and he has a twinkle in his smiling eyes and you want to bang him.
Even if you never work up the nerve to tell him how you think of him, you’re his customer and he’s your barista and what you two have is beautiful.

11.
Seriously. Stop thinking about it. You knew the whole time he never loved you. For fucks sake, you didn’t love him. Stop resenting him. Stop resenting yourself. He wanted to use you and you didn’t let him.
You never even had a single song that reminded you of him.
This dynamic was strange to him, and it worked for a while, but you know him well enough to know that pushing people away is what he’s best at.
You’re better off for not putting up with it. You’re not going to be one of those girls who will stay with a guy who is bad to you. But you’re not going to freak out on him either.
You’re better off.
You’re better off.

12.
You’re thinking about it.
That’s okay, I guess. You’ll feel what you feel until you don’t anymore.

13.
You’re waiting for the bus when you see Soo Yeung, the person you had a huge crush on last semester. You haven’t seen him in forever. You see that he’s still wearing the same black vans. That tickles you, as you always liked them. His hair is longer, yours is shorter.
When you go up to talk to him, he pets your new blunt bangs. He shows his teeth when he smiles. He pulls you in for a hug.
You think, this guy probably holds his girlfriend and strokes her hair when she’s sad. You think, I bet she loves him.
You let yourself prolong the hug for several seconds more than is usually okay. You squeeze him really tight, tighter than you probably should ‘cause of the girlfriend and all.
You’re glad you look so good today, rather than having gone with the sweat pants and dirty hoodie that you wore to bed that you almost didn’t change out of.
He let’s you cling to him. He squeezes you back.
You chat for a bit. He studies your face. You’re still thinking about it. Don’t think about it. Smile.
You smile. Weakly.
You don’t know whether or not you want him to ask you what’s wrong.
You don’t know what you can possibly say.

14.
You still have a playlist saved with all the songs that you were listening to when you still liked Soo Yeung. You still, sometimes, look at that picture you took of him sneakily during class where his hands are raised because he’s explaining something. You try to remember what you guys were talking about. You think that was when he was talking about The Mouth of Sauron.
You still look at the sexy pictures he sent you of himself. Remember that, and delight in the way you
-almost-
won him over.

15.
Everyone else thought this guy, Soo Yeung, was a dick for doing what he did. Leading you on when he had a girlfriend. As the aggressor, you knew they were wrong and that he’s a good guy. You thought he was honorable for letting you know you were the other woman before things got too out of hand. You thought he was good for choosing not to cheat on his girlfriend with you.
You thought the fact that he was still perfectly nice to you after, made him a fucking Prince Charming.
Delight in the way that you, and apparently only you, can see that when people do bad things they’re still good people.
Not everyone is as kind, is as fair as you.

16.
Study his face back. Notice that he can tell something is wrong with you, but appreciate that it’s probably not easy for him to bring up. Notice that he’s beautiful and his features seem so much less severe than they once did. Notice his flaws. Admire them. Let yourself admire him. It’s not a crime.
Remember how, at one point, you were talking to him about time travel and tangent universes. Think about how it seemed like you’d met someone, finally, who was custom made for you.

17.
Soo Yeung’s talking about how busy he’s been lately.
Remember how this boy rejected you: How he made a point to let you know how hard you’d made things for him, how he let you know that it was so tempting an idea to go for it with you.
Remember how little it hurt you.
Because, really, it didn’t hurt.
It was disappointing, yes, because you thought it would be nice to have sex with someone you actually had feelings for: you wanted to wrap your legs around his face, have him finish inside you, then cuddle and watch sci-fi and talk about Joss Whedon.
It was disappointing, but it didn’t hurt.
If this Prince Charming didn’t hurt you, why let a person you always thought was a scumbag, the person you called shit eating goat fucker make you so goddamn sad?

18.
You try to smile again. It’s that point in the conversation where you both know its time to part.
You’re about to back away, when Soo Yeung opens his arms for another hug.
He doesn’t know what’s wrong, but he rubs your back a little bit. He has no idea how much you needed that. It’s comforting. This embrace is shorter, because you want to let him leave.
You turn around.
“I have some time before work,” he says after you. “Let me give you a ride home.”

19.
It’s very much out of his way. You don’t want to inconvenience him. It’d be better if you refused.

20.
You don’t, though. You feel like you owe it to yourself to accept someone’s generosity.

21.
Your day is picking up. Delight in it. Don’t think about what happened with Shit Eating Goat Fucker over the weekend, what he did to you. Just appreciate that a person you could easily fall in love with is being kind to you. Don’t fall in love, just appreciate that he is lovable. Just appreciate that he is kind.

22.
His car is a blue Honda jeep van thing. You want to call it a Wrangler. You don’t know car names. You’ve only been in it once before.

23.
There’s sports equipment and gadgets in the very back row of seats, but the rest of the car is clean. You pick up the solitary piece of garbage in the front seat- one of those paper sleeves for a hot coffee cup- and twist it around in your hands. You fold it up. You tear it apart. He talks about his latest project, that he’s building a pair of retractable wings for a costume. You look at his throat. After that he wants to do something with photography.
You always wanted to be friends with someone who loved to create. You like people who are both scientists and artists.

24.
You don’t ask if he’s still with his girlfriend. You know he is. The last time you asked, he said yes, and you told him to hurry up with that. You regretted it because you didn’t mean it.
You don’t want him to break up with her—not really.
For sure, you’ll be delighted if their relationship ends on its own, but you don’t want him to leave her. You like that he treats her right. You hope they make each other happy.
You mean that genuinely.
Be delighted by that part of yourself. Be delighted that good guys like him exist.
Be delighted that someone good like him has someone good like his girlfriend must be. Trust that she’s wonderful. Trust that she is more wonderful than you. Trust that they’re wonderful together.
Avoid bringing her up, in case you’re wrong.

25.
He’s listening to the radio station that plays at work. Smile, knowing that when this song comes on during your shift tomorrow it’ll remind you of him.
Smile, and know that it won’t hurt.
Smile, and know that at some point you and this guy will be listening to the same song at the exact same time.
This is the kind of guy who is allowed to break your heart, you tell yourself. But this guy didn’t. Smile. Smile. Smile.

26.
While he talks, look out the tinted windows of the passenger seat and listen to what he says instead of paying attention to his gorgeous, gorgeous face. Put the tattered garbage in that little door pocket. See a patch of blue in the middle of all the choppy gray clouds. Appreciate how pretty it is, a bright solitary piece in the middle of the sky. Look at the stretches of gray sky, all the layers and layers of clouds. Gray. Appreciate how pretty they are, too.
The beams of light coming from one particular section of clouds looks mythical, like something out of an old religious painting. Point it out to Soo Yeung. He thinks it’s pretty too.

27.
Your coworker needs you to cover their shift tonight. Do it, not because they said they’d take your Friday night, but because they need this from you.
Delight in the small ways you can help the people you care about.

28.
Go to work with a huge grin on your face. Say ‘hola mi amour’ to all your Mexican male coworkers. Delight in the way they always make a point to tell you you’re beautiful today.
Tell your boss that he looks handsome today. He loves you. It’ll make his day.
Grin at every single customer like they’re your pals. Thank them for coming in.
Mean it.
You guys get more tips when you’re in a good mood. Everyone tells you so.

29.
Tell your sympathetic girlfriends at work what happened over the weekend, how horrible it all was, and the horrible aftermath. Skipping no details, tell them what he did. Tell them what he did. Tell him what you said, what he said.
Let them see how okay you are.
Delight in how quickly you’ve made yourself get over it.
That means you win. Even if he bested you, it means you win.