I was browsing through Instagram the other day and came across the #52ListsProject hashtag. The list lover in me was immediately hooked, especially when I saw that week’s prompt.
List the happiest moments of your life so far.
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Oh my word, my mind immediately started racing as I thought of moment after moment that ranked pretty high on the happy list. I could barely write fast enough to get all of the good moments down on paper.
As I kept writing and writing, I was struck by just how much happy I’ve crammed into 27 years of life. And you know what? That made me so happy in and of itself that I could resist sharing some of my happiest moments with you all.
- Marrying the man of my dreams.
- Landing my dream job right out of college.
- Getting into Clemson!
- Doing so well and graduating in four years.
- Every time A comes home from a deployment.
- Finding out I get to go see Garth Brooks in February!
- Buying a house by myself at the age of 23.
- Getting to bring my little buddy, B home.
- Friends getting engaged, getting married and having babies!
- Our entire honeymoon.
- Catching snowflakes on my tongue after watching a $2 movie in college.
- A asking me to be his wife.
- Picking up my first puppy when I was in the 3rd grade.
- Completing my solo half marathon.
- Clemson beating LSU in the Chick-fil-A bowl in 2012 and watching the whole thing from an amazing restaurant in Nashville.
- An N’SYNC concert when I was about 12.
- Buying myself flowers on a random Saturday morning.
- Making snow angels in Colorado.
- Our family vacation to Washington, D.C.
- Celebrating A making chief!
- Getting my first American Girl doll when I was in the 2nd grade.
- The Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup in 2006 and their playoff run in 2009.
- My 22nd surprise birthday party.
- Ice skating in London, badly.
- Going to Disney World when I was 6 and having Cinderella call me “Princess Rachel”.
- Hosting Thanksgiving for the very first time.
- All of the random lunch dates, snow days, late nights, and road trips all spent with people I love.
The best part of writing this list (and then spending some time reflecting on it) is seeing just how many of my happiest moments aren’t huge major life moments. Yes, a few of them, like getting married, are those big life-defining moments, but most of them are the average every day moments that could be easily forgotten.
That realization is exactly what I set out with the goal of being more present in 2016. It’s why my phone gets put away after work, why the TV is off during dinner, why I want to soak up every moment. Because in 27 years, I want to look back and pull up so many happiest moments that I hardly have paper enough to write them all down.
Now it’s your turn: what are some of the happiest moments of your life so far?
I’m linking up with these lovely ladies this week:
