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| English: Comfort in Grief (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| I'm Happy Just to Dance with You (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Anyone who knows me
really well knows that my name and contentment do not go together. Rather, I
live by obsessions and on fixing the problems of my self and well everyone I
know. I have never claimed to have a high success rate.
Lately something odd has happened. I am content. Sometimes
I am actually happy. When I am my kids, tend to ask, "What is wrong?"
I guess if Mom is not ranting about the plight of the Palestinian or the fact
the boys never clean their bathroom then the planets must be out of alignment.
So I sat down to figure out if there are some advantages
to getting older and learning a few things about how I actually ended up
contented. I came up with a few. I would obsessively catalog them to fix the
unhappiness of the masses, but I think I will skip that.
Lesson One: Let It Be
I possess very little personal power to change the
behavior of my own teens let alone the woes of the world. To borrow cliché
advice from the Beatles song, let it be. I support the political cause I can
when I have time and money. I have done my share of canvassing, speaking at school
board, and writing letters to everyone about causes that throw me into rants.
Change will happen with or without me. I have do not have the mental
constitution to not overly respond to my house being egged, door vandalized, or
the religious nut carrying," I hate fags" sign at Pride. At the end
of the day I am a house wife and it is ok. The world is full of bright and
talented people who do have the mental constitution for these things.
Lesson Two: Do what you can tolerate.
I do have a personal ethic and politic. I am doing what I
can tolerate. No one vandalizes your house or physically threatens you for
volunteering at a pet shelter. I feel passionately about animals and I can
actually enjoy working on something of value even if it just changes the lives
of a few dogs and cats.
Lesson Three: The sky is not falling
I have been poor my whole adult life. I used to live in
constant anxiety where the food and rent were coming from. I used to grieve
over not being able to give them the lessons and clothes the other kids had.
Now I know the sky is not falling. The rent money always
comes. I have never been homeless. The kids have not starved and hopefully will
be functional adults. I always gave them the best of what I had ;even if I
could not give them the best of everything.
Lesson Four: It is ok if the past was sad sometimes.
People die and lovers leave. I used to live in a sort of
perpetual grief. I just never could stand to lose anyone. I wanted stability
and I got a hell of ride. I found you can be happy sometimes just if you choose
too.
Lesson Five: It is ok to be happy and to remember the joy
of the past.
It is not a sin to be happy; just because there is
injustice in the world. It is also just as important to remember the joy of the
past as much as the grief. Time does not heal your past wounds, but remembering
the good part of lost relationships is sort of like aspirin for grief.
I have not had a normal life. I have not had a significant
life. In the end it is my life and even if in the big picture my existence
changed nothing. joy was my birthright all along.
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