You know the dream that maybe most girls have? The road trip with your best friends, coffee in your hands with the wind blowing your hair (Wasai, are we still doing this?). Does that ring a bell? Maybe it does or not.

• 

Sadly, I am a bearer of bad news. You may get that road trip or you may not. Some of us idealized happiness as the Pins we accidentally saw on Pinterest and vowed to not die before getting there. Some of us will get that Porsche we have had an eye on for a long time but some of us won’t. Some will retire at 50 to have a time of their lives but some of us will work their asses off until 70. It is the cycle of life that we were inevitably caught up in.

We have idealized happiness so much that we haven’t seen it in the smallest of things. Maybe for you, it will be on the floor of your best friend’s stuffy house, laughing at high school memories and wishing for them back. For another person, it may be a street child thanking them profusely for dropping a coin into their hands. For some, it will be a night walk or bungee jumping with our loved ones, wishing that time would stop for a while and let you only feel that.

Away with teenage stuff, maybe that promotion or a getaway with your family, or when your mama makes a surprise visit to your home and you feel like going into her arms and staying there forever because adulting is tough or it may come from a stranger’s ‘hi’ on the street.

We have looked for big cars and so much money, forgetting that happiness is not a goal. It is an experience that, if we are actively looking for it, is right here with us.

PS Writing in the middle of things is thrilling.