2023 Happiness Box Project

I have written a little bit about my Happiness Box Project already. This idea started in the summer of 2015, but started as, "Oh, let me try a Happiness jar in 2016!" I tried it, but failed: the jar didn't hold much. In December 2016, after receiving a sweater for the holidays, I had a novel idea. Since the sweater came in a big box, I could try a Happiness Box for 2017!

The Box was a success and we are now approaching the end of it's sixth year. I will be doing this again for 2024 because this project has helped my mental health. It has grown in the last six years and I expect it to keep on changing and growing. Of course I do, that is the nature of long term project, just like any long term relationship.

I was raped in November 2013. The 10 year anniversary is approaching and I'm beyond grateful to still be alive. My guardian angel was with me that night, and that is why I tend to celebrate life. However, I was a depressed mess for two years and that is why I wanted to try a happiness project. My PTSD and depression sapped all joy out of me.

In the early days of the Happiness Box, I only focused on the moments that brought me joy and/or gratitude. Even if it was a bad day, I would focus on the gratitude in that moment. As I learned in the aftermath of my rape, there are still glimmers of hope. For all the pain and nasty voices that followed, there was a lot of support and help, two things I will always be grateful for. If that horrible moment can have some glimmers of hope, a bad day can too.

However, I only focused on joy and forgot other feelings. While that is important when trying to learn how to feel some joy again, other feelings are important too. Other feelings are just as valid and healthy. They need to be felt as well. I started writing about the bad days in detail, and then add in detail why I was grateful. Now I write about certain things in detail and the feelings behind it. That has been more helpful and when I look back on the scrapbook I make after I open the Happiness Box, it's more meaningful and has the histories of the year.

The other week when David and I were having an anniversary lunch with our older friends, C's husband actually asked me what exactly the Happiness Box was since I'm always talking about it. C is very familiar with the concept, but she wanted me to explain it in my own words to her husband.

I explained to him that nowadays my Happiness Box is sort of like a non-tradition journal, but instead of keeping it in a book, I write it down on note paper and throw it into a box.

David also decided to add what the Happiness Box Project means to him. I wanted to hear this; both C and smiled. David knows this project is important to me and since he's been contributing a little since we started dating, I wanted to get his take on a project we've started working on together a little.

David told V, C's husband, "to me, it's more than a journal. It's a scrapbook, but instead of focusing on one thing like the other scrapbooks Jess makes, she captures every day moments. It's like a time capsule of sorts."

David wasn't wrong. Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, I would make scrapbook layouts of trips I went on and would put them into the Happiness Box. During COVID, I decided that bigger trips would get it's own scrapbook, a vacation scrapbook, but small day trips could get a layout. When I was able to travel again in the moment the restrictions eased a bit, I did. However, those layouts were so different than the past. Traveling and traveling safely took on a new meaning. There was truly a lot to be grateful for. I'd like to think this project helped me keep some sanity during the Pandemic.

I stopped making layouts for 2021 and most of 2022. I started making layouts again when I started dating David and for many things in 2023. I can't wait for David and I to open Happiness Box 2023 on 1 January 2024.

I have a feeling that as our relationship grows, so will my Happiness Box. It'll probably take on a new direction, and that is okay. This relationship strengthens me and I want to put that into the Box. I've healed and grown since my rape in 2013, and for that, I am truly grateful.

I'm looking forward to seeing how I will grow as a person too.