Write About Now

By most standards, I have a pretty great life. I’m able to support myself writing and I get to work from home. I’m still relatively young and in good health. I belong to one of the best and most fun families I know and I have wonderful friends who love me. I get to travel a bit, my retirement account has money in it and I have all my teeth. Life is good.

Yet even as I type each of these blessings, “but” statements drift through my thoughts. I can support myself, yes, but it would be nice to make more. I’m young but starting to see a few wrinkles, and I’m generally healthy but still recovering from some stress-induced illness that started a few years ago. I belong to a great family but don’t get to see all of them as often as I’d like, and many of my closest friends are 2,000 miles away. My retirement account could be bigger, and it takes some serious coin at the dentist to keep good teeth looking good.

No matter what we have, it’s all too easy to focus on what’s lacking. Lately, for me, this has taken the form of a house. After ten years of apartment living, ten years of fighting for parking and listening to fights through paper-thin walls and trying to make do with appliances I wouldn’t choose and cramming clothes into tiny closets, I want a house. Nothing big, nothing pretentious, just a little house with hardwood floors and a couple of bedrooms and space for a garden in the back. Lately I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

This morning, perhaps it was my neighbor sitting outside and yelling at the top of her lungs for her dog to return rather than getting off her butt and walking to him. Perhaps it was being woken from a sound sleep to have three maintenance men come in to fix my oven which consistently cooks things fifty degrees too high. Perhaps it was watching my light fixtures shake as my upstairs neighbor clod around like an angry Paul Bunyan.

Whatever the reason, this morning I chose complaining (mentally, anyway) over contentment. The fact is, I probably won’t get a house in ‘08 and focusing on the downside of my current situation is a sure road to unhappiness. As moral giant Ann Landers once said, maturity is the ability to live in peace with that which we cannot change.

So, this morning, I now choose to focus on the good. My apartment has a big balcony with views of trees and grass rather than the parking lot I hate, and the unique entrance from my bedroom means I can see my flowerpots (in lieu of the garden) from several rooms. The living room’s wood-burning fireplace kept me warm all winter and the washer/dryer hookups mean I no longer have to save my quarters for a laundromat. When my oven stops working, I don’t have to fix or replace it myself. And one of those maintenance guys was quite cute.