Where's Your Happy Place?

It's 3:18 PM on a Friday. Less than 3 hours to go until I turn Robyn up as loud as my first generation iPod will allow and literally run down Park Avenue South to get on the subway that will take me to the place that smells faintly of sautéed onions and curry, whose floors are covered in carpets from the hashtag motherland, and whose DVR is 78% full with Masterpiece Classics: home.

I really really love being at home. I'm a homebody and can often be found lying on my couch wearing dumpy butt sweatpants and a sweatshirt with toothpaste stains down the front. I really excel at taking naps, and since the best naps occur on one's couch at a midday hour, I'm at my best when I'm taking a nap at home on a weekend afternoon.

But home isn't my happy place. It's too…mundane. In fact, I'm usually quite bitchy and crabby when I'm at home. Happy places are places, or even memories of being in places with certain people, that invoke feelings of peace, calmness, and content. The thought of being in your happy place right. now. should elate you to the point of jumping out of your seat and running towards the door in pursuit of said place.

I have a few happy places. Friday at 5 pm in my college suite surrounded by my roommates. Paris with Ellen. The kitchen in my beach house with my family and watermelon. Driving through San Francisco in my sister's Hyundai when the seat warmers are burning my butt. Zara.

Zara.

It's true. Zara is one of my happy places. I only allow myself to go to Zara once a week in an effort to both save my money and build excitement at the thought of new arrivals. I go every Friday after work. My end of the week reward is to absentmindedly waltz through Zara and try on as many items as my arms will hold. I know Zara is my happy place because the thought of going there in T-minus three hours makes me pee my pants.

Oopf. Gotta go.