Happiness is Enamel Pins and Boba Tea

We all just want to be happy. In a world that's twisted and churning with ribbons of vitriol, craters of iniquity, mountains topped with pricey ecstasy, we all just want little pieces of comfort. We want to be happy.

Two things make me really happy.

Enamel pins and Boba Tea.

The Happiness Quotient

It's not like these things haven't been present in the world the whole time, right, and despite my knowing of them for years, they didn't mean to me before what they've come to mean to me now. Significant happenings- trauma- can change your brain . . . Well, living in a pandemic, a traumatic job(s), and living through a twisted fight for a very wrong normal is certainly . . . life changing.

So, enamel pins and boba tea became my lanterns in the dark. Twin orbs of warmth, shining copper colored lights that sometimes cast faint ribbons and curls of rainbow colors, as if the light was passing through textured glass and being refracted. They're not always needed, the shadows of tepid mental health familiar to me at this point, but they're there when I want a pretty light to reorient my path.

Their importance to me grew in 2021. I don't think I've ever been stronger in my adult life than I was in that year. I felt like things had finally aligned to make sense- I was handling all bills, disputes, and obligations with more grace than in my early twenties. I had escaped a heinous work environment, and I was with a new team that was so incredibly supportive and kind. It felt like most days were a message of encouragement and mindfulness from the Universe- "see what happens if you persevere, when you believe that the storm won't last forever? See what happens when you start to let go of your virulent self hatred?"

This place I worked at had a little department where employees could get a discount on items that were going out of stock or something. Sometimes a new shipment would come around and it would include pins! I had thought pins were sort of useless to buy because you weren't just going to wear that pin out to Publix or Target (oh how little did my unobservant self know); pins seemed to be a fandom experience that only seemed to make sense either in conventions or in the appropriate theme park respective to the pin's brand. So, I wasn't bothered with them until I started working at this place with the little discount department.

They weren't more than a dollar or two usually, and some could even be as cheap as seventy cents. And you know how, if you spend long enough in a place then you start to get used to the habits and customs and even adopt some for your own? Well, owing to the increased amount of time I started spending amongst people who lived and breathed pins and keychains, I started warming up to them. I bought two pins. Then I bought one for a cousin. Some family got some . . . then even more for me. More, more, and I started wishing and hoping to see some new pins coming in with shipments.

Pins were a way to make small, gentle connections with people who were becoming burned out with public interaction in general. You could chat about a particular scene the pin conveyed, the love of a character, the subtle joke the pin told. They were pretty additions to a jacket, a bag, and a reminder of some funny moment between me and another person. I admitted to myself, finally, that I really liked pins.

Boba: Entrance, Stage Right . . .

So, during one conversation with a friend over the latest Loungefly bag I was feening for- one that would be a lovely match to a pin I had- we started talking about food we loved. Somehow or another I mentioned that I had always wanted to try boba tea but was hesitant for fear of wasting money on a thing I wouldn't end up liking. They gave me testimony from several close friends of theirs that boba tea was the best thing since the wheel. I resolved that I would have to try it then, just to see.

I did a little research and found a boba tea spot honestly not too far from work. A place called Tbaar. On a day off I drove over there and peered nervously at the menu. I get anxiety sometimes ordering at a new place because I feel bad for taking longer than 3 seconds to decide what I want, so I had to remember my boundaries. No milk teas, leave the slushies for a braver Danny, and don't get too crazy with any new flavors just yet. So, I stepped forward and in between a slurry of "please", I made the order for a honey aloe green tea. I waited while they made it fresh, and picked a nice lavender colored straw, glancing at the menu and starting to get a little greedy for some of the more creative drinks on the menu.

They called my attention for my drink, and I went back to my car, cranking up the air con and peering warily at this pleasantly golden drink. I'd just spent $8 on this drink, I was not about to chicken out . . . God I hoped it would taste good.

And, you know, that first sip was like . . . you know when you've just shaved your legs and they're all silky smooth? Okay well imagine if you had random yards of silk ribbon and velvet backed powder puffs of the softest synthetic mix, and you were just gently brushing your legs with them. That's how good that first sip made me feel. I've never fallen in love with something so damn fast as I did with boba tea. I savored that tea, or at least I thought I did, because I definitely finished it well before I was halfway home. I resolved that Tbaar was going to be my new favorite place.

From then on, I was a boba tea fiend. I would go once or twice a week, mostly as little "treat yourself" gifts. Oh, lookie, I finished all my washing up and cooking, in just a few hours! I'll treat myself to boba tomorrow. Oh, wow, this week was so hard and I offered to extend! They didn't take me up on it, but I offered, so I think that deserves a boba tea. Wow! I want boba! Boba tea.

Now I did go crazy those first four months or so but I eventually evened out, and I had a nice rhythm going. It was only to be enjoyed after a week of good work and victory over obligations. Boba tea every so often, and a pin was a rare treat because they sold most of them same ones at the store, and like hell I was paying $12-$14 for a pin. That's a whole meal!

I had gained another hobby that didn't take too much energy or attention . . . until my reason for living came around.

Halloween.

To Pin Down The Dark

I have a few time honored traditions when it comes to Halloween, most of them the same as every other person who celebrates the day. I decorate, I wear black 98% of the time, eat Halloween themed candy, watch a horror movie a day . . . the usual stuff. But some of the more fun traditions involve becoming a seasonal haunt worker. Well, in 2021 I was a tour guide (my second year as such), and I was reunited with a lot of old friends in the department. Friends who, actually, are not only theme park enthusiasts but heavy con cosplayers and attendees. We're talking about a group of lovelies for whom pins are a form of currency, both social and occasionally economic.

I never stood a chance in hell of remaining casual with these bands of fools. They had me completely beat on the pin game, you should have seen them- special made pins of Eddie Schmidt, Chance, the Creature From The Black Lagoon- laying out their cash tips for the happy and talented artists on Redbubble, Etsy, you name it. A lot of them even had friends who were adept at making pins! I couldn't begin to compare, but I got swept up in their pin-mania anyway.

I was buying mystery boxes, checking out specialty websites, going right up to practical strangers to gush over their pins. Luckily enough these strangers were more than happy to indulge my questions and compliments, doling out some of their own to my growing collection I had affixed to my lanyard. Each positive interaction seemed to bolster my soul, soothe it from the sparse yet heavy flashbacks to customers near spitting and hissing, feral and unmanageable after our job reopened. My pins became an armor, a sign of growth like the rings of a tree, showing how far I'd come in the pursuit of self-love and boundary making.

And boba tea? I want to say I was getting out of pocket with those teas, but the tips were plentiful, and I have lived my life for the last four years by the motto: "I could die tomorrow." Others call this the "treat yoself" mentality, and I can dig it. So if I was going to be spending the next couple months walking over two miles every single night, and herding a bunch of buzzed and dazed tourists around then, by God, I was going to indulge in some boba tea when I felt like it. My teas became elixirs of vitality and joy, soothing fluid balms for quiet moments in my car.

I felt like a draconic nightmare. Just . . . hoarding, and enjoying, and fostering this new lust for life and the night. I was buying and bragging about pins, and I was the go-to person for a lot of friends about boba tea hot spots. And sure, this new attitude and enjoyment of life was not totally down to pins and boba, but . . . they felt like rebellion. They felt like little markers of joy . . . and maybe a part of me thought that, with boba in one hand and a pin attached to a ribbon, it would never end. Maybe I'd found my talismans.

It had to end sometime.

But Endings Aren't Forever

That time is past now. I pulled back, I pushed forward, and I stumbled and fell. I don't feel like that moonstruck, vivacious woman of last fall. But I'm alright. I'm not where I want to be, but I am alright, and I know better than I did when I took my first big stumbling block five years ago.

A lot of my things had to be packed away and put to the side until I was in a proper space of my own. A lot of my favorite things, my comfort items, are away from me now . . .but that's okay. That's life sometimes, right? Times get rough and you have to compact and reorient. I've still got my enamel pins though. Most of them still attached to that lanyard, some I bought new at a couple of stores, helpless but to feel the smooth lines and polished feel of happy memories.

Sometimes I'll sit in my car after grabbing a boba tea, a brief respite from this new situation to drag the blanket of nostalgia around my shoulders, warm yet light as smoke, and gently stroke a pin or two as I remember when I had been better. Each little pin, each little sip, is a assurance to myself that such a time will come again. Each tap and glance reminds me of the day or night I bought that pin. A more confident woman, excited and maybe even cocky about her place in the city.

Those pins tell me, Yeah you fucked up, but you can fix it. You can get back on track. Matter of fact, you'll be even better!

It'll take some time. And a lot of hard work. But hard work isn't too bad when you've got the self-given bribe of a boba tea coming you way. For now, I remember gentle, happy days and wild, free nights in the shape of enamel pins. I remember happiness and perseverance when I drink a boba tea. And I'll be alright.