Small pleasures

Around a week ago, Ben Patrick Johnson posted some pictures and tweets about enjoying the simple pleasures in life. I was inspired to write something, but I couldn't get the words to flow until today.


It is so easy to forget to enjoy things you see every day. Taking people and places for granted is very very simple and only when they're gone can we see what we had. As a person born and raised in a first world country, it is also very easy for me to take things like running, drinkable water, three meals of fresh food per day, and clean clothes for granted. However, yesterday, I was met with the most awe inspiring experience I've had in months.

Yesterday was moving day. I left my home in Sweden and set off from Gothenburg to my new home in Dublin. Now, I easily get motion sick, so I wasn't looking forward to the flying in itself. I was very excited about seeing Boy again and experiencing a whole new city and country, but I was not looking forward to the flight.
To say that I was happily to be completely wrong would be an understatement. The medical gum I bought worked perfectly and the flight was calm and relaxing. The food was great, the crew was amazing, and the scenery was absolutely breath taking.

While chewing on a piece of still-steaming hot bread, I was suddenly struck by the sheer joy of looking out at a view no one had seen before the Wright Brothers managed to get their flying machine working.

It was perfection. Fluffy clouds, tainted in pink and white and gold, passed over a silver ocean dotted with cargo ships and a lone sail boat. On the horizon, pillars of blinding white clouds reached towards darker heavens, surrounding the blue and silver in a massive frame.

And it hit me that I was sitting in a can, cruising at 12000 meters above the North Sea, watching this amazing view on my way to see the love of my life-so-far.

Finally being ably to hug him again, after four months apart, was so nice. Just a hug made my heart beat faster and I didn't even mind the rain.
The best part of landing in Dublin was just snuggling down in a warm bed and doing nothing, after meeting the two great people we're sharing apartment with, and after a pint of Guinness at a kind of cute pub down the road.

Being stressed out over a hundred big things makes me really appreciate the small pleasures where I get them. Just spending the morning in bed, talking to my parents on Skype, touching Boy whenever I feel like it, and just feel good.

Show appreciation and enjoy life, especially when "nothing is happening". You never know when that calm will be over and you'll long for it again.

DFTBA