HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
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HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
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Monday, December 22, 2008Light the Corners of My Mind The memory's an odd thing. For some reason, tonight I'm flashing back to three years ago. Almost exactly three years, in fact. We were driving to Ohio to spend a couple of days with my family before flying to Seattle to spend time with my wife's family. My wife had told me, about two weeks earlier, that she was pregnant. We'd been trying for awhile, so the news was pretty much the most exciting thing I'd ever experienced. We were planning on telling my parents and my sister--had, in fact devised the perfect ways to tell each of them. And I remember we were in the middle of Pennsylvania. We'd just stopped at some Subway somewhere before Milesburg, PA and I was driving while eating a crappy sub. And I looked over at my wife and I listened to the Christmas music we were playing and I thought, "I am perfectly happy right now." Now, I'd had moments approaching this in the past. Moments where I'd thought about my circumstances and I'd realized that I was utterly content. But there's a difference between contentment and happiness. That moment, with the knowledge of the child on the way and the anticipation of sharing that news with our families, was the happiest I'd ever known up to that point in my life. (Well, neck and neck with looking down the aisle and seeing my wife's father escorting her toward me on our wedding day. That was pretty amazingly happy, too.) I didn't know, at that point, what lay in store. How truly, truly shitty the next couple of years were going to be. About nineteen months later, I would look around at my life and come to basically the exact opposite conclusion: that I was pretty much as unhappy as I'd ever been. Which brings us to today. Another Christmas season. I survey things right now and I'm happier than I was on that road in Pennsylvania. Forty-eight hours from now, I'll be seeing my son. It'll be Christmas Eve and I'll be reunited with my wife and our baby and I'll be filled with happiness and contentment that make everything that came before look ill in comparison. And that's my wish for everyone this holiday season. (I won't get a chance to write again before the big day.) I hope that everybody has a moment to look around. And when you do, I hope what you see makes you truly happy. And if it doesn't, wait awhile. Because it's out there. And it will come to you. Merry Christmas
Comments:
Thank you. I really, really needed to read this today. This Christmas is the worst of my life -- no money for presents or even Christmas dinner, no extended family, no visits from friends. But our family (Lynette, the kids and I) are determined to enjoy each other. We do have one priceless thing: love, and we have that in abundance. We just keep telling ourselves and each other that next year will be better. Again, thank you for this post.
Travel safely and have a wonderful Christmas!
I have that same feeling looking at Riley. Have fun in Seattle, baby bro. And give Spencer big smoochies from me, please!
# posted by
 : 5:06 PM
Hey - nice perspective...and you're right...you really are.
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I'm feeling blessed right now and I'm glad to know you are too.
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