What Makes Me Happy

“What makes you happy?”

From out of nowhere, this question was directed at me today. I was speechless, and it’s not because I couldn’t think of anything, it’s because there’s too many possible answers that I don’t know where to begin. I think I am blessed like that. My fiancé once told me that he’s a lucky guy because it doesn’t take much to make me happy. I’m very easy to please and I find joy in the smallest of things. Like right now, I am enjoying a quiet Friday night by myself — I just had sushi for dinner while watching Grey’s Anatomy season 10 episode 4, and now I’ve got time to blog while my clothes are spinning away in the washing machine. I shall make this number 1: Quiet, productive time by myself. I guess it’s a good thing that I do enjoy my own company. The next ones are in no particular order:

2) Morning prayer time. Favorite part of my day. Nothing beats the calmness in my heart every time I get to start my day with a long talk with God. Sadly though, when I wake up later than expected, my prayer time before I do anything else gets shortened, although the continuation follows when I’m in the train on my way to work. This includes reading verses of the day, gospel, and my favorite devotionals from Joyce Meyer and Rick Warren. These serve as my weapons as I face all sorts of battles everyday.

3) Avocado shake. And not just any avocado shake, it has to be bought from the fruit stall behind St. Joseph church near my office.

4) Introducing new music to friends. It brings me so much joy when a friend ends up liking a song or an artist that I recommended to them.

5) Our GK babies. Our growing family now has eight babies, three of which are recent additions born last September. You can just imagine our Whatsapp group filled with baby pictures and stories of the babies’ latest milestones — my daily source of good vibes :)

6) One-to-ones with Erick. I treasure our one-to-ones so much because it is a time for us to really open up our hearts to each other. This is not the time for us to be all lovey-dovey and gush about our love for each other. In our one-to-ones, we talk about our fears, worries, and insecurities in life. We also talk about our arguments–what went wrong and how we could have handled the situation better. These conversations make our relationship stronger. I would strongly encourage other couples to have these conversations too :)

7) Long weekends. I don’t think this needs further explanation. But this I will admit: I usually indulge in one full day of just lounging at home, reading and sleeping as much as I’d like whenever we have long weekends. I can’t afford to do this on regular weekends because there’s always something scheduled for both days (service, get-togethers, parties, etc).

8) Reading. My favorite pastime. It’s quite sad that I’m way behind my reading. Bought a couple of new books a month ago which I haven’t even opened yet.

9) The thought that I am one month away from officially becoming Mrs. Labiano. CHEESY!!! But in all seriousness, these past few days have been stressful for me in terms of wedding preps, but when I am reminded of that thought, I am assured that IT’S ALL GOING TO BE WORTH IT. This is God’s work. This is His plan. For me to marry the love of my life. I AM SO BLESSED.

10) Handwritten letters. In this day and age dominated by technology and social media, receiving a handwritten note or love letter could be priceless. A simple one-liner post-it note from my special someone makes me crazily happy :)