Lucy crept through the darkened side of the house, tiptoeing cautiously around the familiar outlines of armchairs and couches. She bit back a giggle as she found the perfect hiding spot behind a tattered rocking chair and knelt down, waiting.

She and her brothers had just arrived home from a very long Sunday.  They’d started at church with their parents in the morning, and then spent the afternoon visiting Grandma and helping her with various winter chores, mostly shoveling snow and stacking wood. Their parents sent them home early in Jack’s beat up Volkswagen after their day of hard work, while they stayed behind to make sure Gram was situated for the rest of the week.

The drive back was spent bickering over what they’d watch on TV when they got home until they finally agreed to rent a movie from the RedBox en route. Now, Jack and Oliver had arrived in the living room, movie ready to go, and Lucy was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Luce?” came Jack’s muffled voice from the other side of the wall.

Lucy bit her tongue and stayed very still, determined not to give herself away. She was on the other side of their duplex house, the side no one had lived in for years. They used it to store furniture and extra kitchen appliances, and her parents kept swearing they were going to knock down the walls and make it one big place, but Lucy was 11 and they’d been saying that since they moved in when she was 5.

Everything was fully functional on this side, and Lucy often escaped over here for the privacy of her own bathroom. She knew that was where they’d look first, and sure enough, Oliver came banging through the connecting door intending to hurry her along.

“What the…she’s not in the bathroom over here,” he shouted back to Jack. Lucy bit her tongue tighter and ducked down a little lower.  The lights they had on wouldn’t reach back here, but she wanted to be extra careful.

She listened as Oliver stormed back over to whine to their big brother about Lucy playing stupid games and where on earth she could be hiding. Lucy smothered her grin behind her hand. They’d never find her. They knew Lucy was no fan of being in the dark–it would never occur to them to check back here. Well done, Luce, she thought to herself.  Surely, when she eventually reappeared, they’d both congratulate her on her excellent hiding job, her bravery in the dark.  After they threw things at her, of course, and ranted about her childishness.

A car passed by on the street outside and for a moment, Lucy’s hiding spot was lit up from the windows.  She crouched down lower, breathless at the silly excitement of it all. She could hear the boys banging around upstairs now, calling her name and opening closet doors, telling her they were going to start the movie without her if she didn’t show up soon.

With her back to the window as a second car passed, Lucy didn’t see what else the headlights were illuminating. Close enough to her own hiding spot to reach out and touch was the silhouette of a man, standing very still and holding his own breath as his dark-adjusted eyes watched the crouching form of the girl right in front of him.

Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes, even though there is a roof over my head and plenty of food in the cupboards and a warm bed at night, it feels like nothing is okay or will be alright. Sometimes it seems like it would be better to just stay in that warm bed with the covers pulled over my head and hide from the world for awhile.

This weekend, I started and finished Gayle Forman’s “I Was Here”, and it was as heartrending as I’d expected it to be. It tells the story of a young girl left reeling by the suicide of her best friend. Cody doesn’t understand how Meg could have given up, could have left her behind, abandoned her to her sadness. It’s a good book. It’s a departure from Forman’s previous works (If I Stay, Where She Went, Just One Day, Just One Year) because, while it still involves a romance, the romance is not the center of the story.  The story is Cody and how she survives this heart break. At the end of the novel (don’t worry, no spoilers here) Forman includes a few pages about suicide prevention and where to seek help. And she says this, which I love:

“Like Cody, like Richard, I have gone there. I’ve had my days. But I’ve never seriously considered suicide. Which isn’t to say my life hasn’t been touched by it. Someone very close to me attempted suicide long ago. He got help, and went on to live a long and happy life. If suicide is a sliding door of might-have-beens, in Suzy and Meg’s case, I see the ghosts of their lives unlived, and in this other case, I see the flipside: a happy, full life that might never have been.

Life can be hard and beautiful and messy, but hopefully, it will be long. If it is, you will see that it’s unpredictable and that the dark periods come, but they abate–sometimes with a lot of of support–and the tunnel widens, allowing the sun back in. ”

So sometimes life is hard and unhappy. But, as the marvelous Alice says in The Magicians by Lev Grossman: “No, you can’t [just decide to be happy]. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable.” So in the spirit of deciding not to be miserable, I spent a day forcing myself to look on the bright side, smiling until I felt better (Kimmying–have you watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt yet? You should.). And you know what? It works. Sometimes you must look at the small things that make up your big life and let them make you happy.

So what are my little things?

Remembering my reusable grocery bags

Finding an amazing quote in a book I’m reading.

Delicious new flavors of coffee.

Office supplies. Fresh pens, blank notebooks, brightly colored post-it notes.

New books by favorite authors.

Gravy fries. Especially from the FLX Wienery or Mr. Chicken.

Houses that look lived in.

Finding a book for a teen who “hates reading” and having her like it so much that she asks to take it home. And then that teen comes back after finishing the book and begs for the next one.

Taking the dog for a car ride.

Overflowing bookshelves.

A library full of kids using everything in the library (playing checkers, building Legos, doing homework, reading books!)

Drinking red wine out of my “gladiator glass”     

This list is not exhaustive, of course, but I think in the future I’ll post “Sometimes: Chapters 2-many” whenever I feel the need to refocus my life lens on the little bits of happy.

So what are yours, dear readers? What little things make you happy?