We Should Be Happy, That's What I Said from the Start

This morning I took a partially eaten box of Club crackers to lab. Starting two summers ago, one of my labmates, James, has consistently kept dark chocolate chips at his bench, and I spent many a quiet lab afternoon munching on those dark chocolate chips and chatting with him and the rest of my labmates. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and dark chocolate chips don't exactly fill me up. So forever, I've been telling myself that I need to bring savory snacks into the lab for everyone to snack on. Finally doing what I've told myself I would do for so long really felt good. Even better was that I finally got to snack on crackers in lab! And the best was that my labmates enjoyed [and are still enjoying] the crackers as well. I didn't realize until some time in my college career that I'm turning into my mother in the sense that I love it when people eat food I offer. So to see the cracker box slowly emptying brought me more joy than something like that normally should. Ha.

You know how people talk about the straw that broke the camel's back? I feel like eating three Club crackers on my way out to the parking lot after my day in lab was that for me, except in a positive way. It was the one incident in the day that made me realize that, once again, I'm happy today. There are just so many reasons to be joyous. The weather was beautiful today, and I ate lunch outside with two of my closest friends. I started a new mapping project in lab, and if things go well, I'll leave the lab [forever, which makes me sad] two weeks from now having mapped two mutations in about 10 weeks. Actually accomplishing things in my labwork makes me feel so good. I got to leave early today, and beat traffic coming home, but also managed to do real work in lab--yet another thing to be happy about. Last but not least, it didn't hurt that I wore a bright red shirt today that made me feel pretty. Course, I ruined the whole look (tunic and skinny jeans) by wearing chunky flip-flops, but said flip-flops are very comfortable, so I'm okay with that.

I very recently reconnected with two friends I haven't really kept in touch with throughout college (one via facebook message, the other via phone), an act definitely galvanized by the funeral I went to last weekend. That it was so simple to get back in touch with those two, especially one of them, that all it took was one facebook message, one phone call, made me feel...hopeful. It's great to make new friends, but the Girl Scouts weren't kidding when they said, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold": there's nothing like the comfort of knowing that someone who knew and loved you back in your middle school dork days is still at least mildly interested in your life and your future.

And a lot of other things are going well in my life right now: my family, my future, my love life. There's just a lot going right, right now. It feels a little precarious, but hopefully life will stay this way. = )

"Hopelessly, the hope is we've got so much to feel good about." (Good Life-OneRepublic)

Note: Entry title is lifted from a line from "Happy" by Nevershoutnever, some of the lyrics of which confuse me, most of which make me, well, happy.