From the mystical to the more mundane, here's my list of what I'm grateful for, in this new life we are now living.
1) We got here safely and found a safe place to live.
2) We found an IT job for David in an area where there apparently are none AND reduced our commute by half (from the 3 miles it was in Milwaukee).
3) We reduced our utility bill by $230 - cheaper internet, no more cable, and no more huge gas bill for heating our home in frigid temperatures!
4) Walking on the beach in bikini and shorts on November 20th, nuff said.
5) Catching the gorgeous sunset over the Gulf on said beach walks.
6) Nice, small, cheap apartment that's easy to clean.
7) Laundry facilities in our apartment complex. It's so cute, tenants use the "honor system" to pay for using the washer and dryer. So far I've been honorable.
8) Lucky "black racer" snake in our front yard - don't worry, he's non-poisonous.
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080417081952AAiiEEp
Now we just need to name him.
9) Bob, the fluffy orange next-door-neighbor cat who is finally letting me pet him. Not sure if he's met the snake yet.
10) Nice state parks close by for hiking and alligator watching.
11) The possibility of spying Stephen King near his seasonal home on Casey Key, during one of my jogs.
12) David's finally not cold and NOT moving H20 (i.e. shoveling snow).
13) No corporate jobs and no pantyhose!
14) No more dry cleaning bills.
15) Key West is a mere 7 hours drive away, and we'll get there to see it eventually.
16) Palm trees, nuff said.
17) Closer to Panama (and we'll get there, eventually).
18) Cheap produce at Farmer's Markets.
19) My new friend Beth who promised to teach me how to cook some new dishes to keep dinner interesting, as I continue playing housewife.
20) The ability to not work and just play housewife! For only a bit longer till I get a job....
It's funny, I read in my journal where I wrote a long time ago that "if David would just let me quit this job and I could be his housewife, I'd gladly have dinner on the table everyday for him." Now, come to find that gig isn't all roses and circus ponies and sunshine like I thought it would be. But I'm taking the lesson, seeing how "grass is always greener" and "glass half-empty" I can be and how that's never served me.
I'm starting to really get that happiness and joy are much less our daily lives and what happens to us, and much more about how we react to everything. Therefore it's inside us, not outside of us. Eckhart Tolle says in his book The Power of Now that "...what is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within."
This is sort of the good news and the bad news rolled into one. It means that when we're unhappy we can do something about it, but it also means that if we don't there's no blaming the world or other people for our misery. Not to sermonize too much, but I truly believe that once you understand this kind of radical self-responsibility in a deep way it's hard to forget, even when you (I) fail to enact that knowledge on any particular day.
So I'm grateful for the challenges during this interim period of our adventure that give me the opportunity to try to get it right (corny as that may sound). And I hope that during this holiday season and always, we may all have more true joy in our lives.
Monday, November 23, 2009
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