We’ve been busy. The good kind of busy, where you are so occupied with living life you don’t have time to stop and write about it.
We celebrated Dean’s second birthday last Saturday with a smallish brunch for family and friends. The weather cooperated and we were able to open the back doors to the porch and kids and guests streamed in and out all morning, munching on Italian casserole and chocolate chip muffins and drinking juice boxes and mimosas when not jumping on the trampoline or climbing in the play house or dunking the basketball. It was a delightful party, and really made us love our house, and the circle of friends in it even more. Dean had a grand time, he really has no problem being the center of attention. He loves singing Happy Birthday even when it is isn’t in his honor, so he lapped it up. Henry got to play with his friend Nate and his cousin Foster most of the day, and then ran down to the park with his friend Aiden while I cleaned up from the party and Dean napped.
Lately I have begun to have those creeping feelings of doom again, the feelings I get when things seem to be going too well. I am not depressed, not at all; but I feel acutely aware of the fragility of life. My good friend Toby came into town for a visit not long ago and we mused briefly about the stage of life we are in. I asked her if she ever felt like what she was doing -- being a wife and distinguished professor and active member of her synagogue, plus a number of other accomplished things I am probably unaware of -- was enough. I mean, shouldn’t it be? If she had said that yes, it did feel like enough, I would have said, well, of course, that’s a full plate of meaningful things and relationships, you should feel quite proud and satisfied. But she didn’t say it was -- she understood what I meant exactly. I have this sense of yearning for something else, some new project or way to define myself, and she summed up quite accurately a potential reason for this feeling. Like so many of my circle of friends, I have spent most of my life striving. Striving to get into college, then to get into grad school, then to get into law school, then to get a good job, and then a better job, and in the midst of all that, getting married, getting pregnant, getting pregnant again, finding the right first house, then the next house, then the next, finding that community of like-minded friends and fellow parents, finding that place in the future where things were supposed to be settled and bright.
And now, here I am -- I’ve arrived at that place. And it is everything I wanted it to be -- I love my home, I feel so fortunate to get to live in the house and neighborhood and city that I would choose even if I could live anywhere else in the world for the all the money in the world. I love my husband, adore him, actually. My kids are healthy and joyful and lovable. I like my job, and Matthew likes his, and we both make enough money to live comfortably. My family members and close friends are healthy. We’ve maintained a great circle of friends over the years and remain close with them, plus we have a new network of terrificly down to earth fellow parents in the neighborhood.
What more could I want?
I am not really sure, all I know is that want has become a habit. Not of material things, but of experiences, of goals, of that place in the future that I am supposed to strive to get to. Is this why I want to write a novel, or a children’s book, or a screenplay? Is it purely narcissistic longing for recognition? Is it truly to satisfy a creative urge? Or is it also that I just have to have something to want, that I don’t know how to fully immerse myself in where I am and what I am and who I am right now, and have that be enough?
I would like that to be enough, if only because I don’t want to miss it. After my father’s death when I was 15, I’ve never taken happiness for granted. I don’t think joy or peace or contentment is a birthright. I think it is a combination of something you work at, and something you get lucky at, and the best thing you can do when it shows up it is to give it a comfortable seat, to steal from Fezziwig. And right now I feel like all the chairs in my house are taken up with happiness, and I can’t bear the thought that one of those chairs will become empty. This week I was convinced that Matthew had some awful disease because of a relentless pain in his chest. He ended up going to the doctor and having an x-ray and everything is fine, he just injured some rib muscles. And I am flooded with relief. But when I thought it might be something serious, I just thought, well, of course. It was all too good. Something has to give. Or does it? I wish I could just settle into happiness, be comfortable with it, put up my feet and enjoy it without expecting it to disappear at any moment. Because of course it might, and eventually it will, but that was Fezziwig’s point, right? Don’t hover around it making excuses, don’t genuflect as if you don’t deserve it, and certainly don’t take it for granted, but just let happiness be, and enjoy its company.
We celebrated Dean’s second birthday last Saturday with a smallish brunch for family and friends. The weather cooperated and we were able to open the back doors to the porch and kids and guests streamed in and out all morning, munching on Italian casserole and chocolate chip muffins and drinking juice boxes and mimosas when not jumping on the trampoline or climbing in the play house or dunking the basketball. It was a delightful party, and really made us love our house, and the circle of friends in it even more. Dean had a grand time, he really has no problem being the center of attention. He loves singing Happy Birthday even when it is isn’t in his honor, so he lapped it up. Henry got to play with his friend Nate and his cousin Foster most of the day, and then ran down to the park with his friend Aiden while I cleaned up from the party and Dean napped.
Lately I have begun to have those creeping feelings of doom again, the feelings I get when things seem to be going too well. I am not depressed, not at all; but I feel acutely aware of the fragility of life. My good friend Toby came into town for a visit not long ago and we mused briefly about the stage of life we are in. I asked her if she ever felt like what she was doing -- being a wife and distinguished professor and active member of her synagogue, plus a number of other accomplished things I am probably unaware of -- was enough. I mean, shouldn’t it be? If she had said that yes, it did feel like enough, I would have said, well, of course, that’s a full plate of meaningful things and relationships, you should feel quite proud and satisfied. But she didn’t say it was -- she understood what I meant exactly. I have this sense of yearning for something else, some new project or way to define myself, and she summed up quite accurately a potential reason for this feeling. Like so many of my circle of friends, I have spent most of my life striving. Striving to get into college, then to get into grad school, then to get into law school, then to get a good job, and then a better job, and in the midst of all that, getting married, getting pregnant, getting pregnant again, finding the right first house, then the next house, then the next, finding that community of like-minded friends and fellow parents, finding that place in the future where things were supposed to be settled and bright.
And now, here I am -- I’ve arrived at that place. And it is everything I wanted it to be -- I love my home, I feel so fortunate to get to live in the house and neighborhood and city that I would choose even if I could live anywhere else in the world for the all the money in the world. I love my husband, adore him, actually. My kids are healthy and joyful and lovable. I like my job, and Matthew likes his, and we both make enough money to live comfortably. My family members and close friends are healthy. We’ve maintained a great circle of friends over the years and remain close with them, plus we have a new network of terrificly down to earth fellow parents in the neighborhood.
What more could I want?
I am not really sure, all I know is that want has become a habit. Not of material things, but of experiences, of goals, of that place in the future that I am supposed to strive to get to. Is this why I want to write a novel, or a children’s book, or a screenplay? Is it purely narcissistic longing for recognition? Is it truly to satisfy a creative urge? Or is it also that I just have to have something to want, that I don’t know how to fully immerse myself in where I am and what I am and who I am right now, and have that be enough?
I would like that to be enough, if only because I don’t want to miss it. After my father’s death when I was 15, I’ve never taken happiness for granted. I don’t think joy or peace or contentment is a birthright. I think it is a combination of something you work at, and something you get lucky at, and the best thing you can do when it shows up it is to give it a comfortable seat, to steal from Fezziwig. And right now I feel like all the chairs in my house are taken up with happiness, and I can’t bear the thought that one of those chairs will become empty. This week I was convinced that Matthew had some awful disease because of a relentless pain in his chest. He ended up going to the doctor and having an x-ray and everything is fine, he just injured some rib muscles. And I am flooded with relief. But when I thought it might be something serious, I just thought, well, of course. It was all too good. Something has to give. Or does it? I wish I could just settle into happiness, be comfortable with it, put up my feet and enjoy it without expecting it to disappear at any moment. Because of course it might, and eventually it will, but that was Fezziwig’s point, right? Don’t hover around it making excuses, don’t genuflect as if you don’t deserve it, and certainly don’t take it for granted, but just let happiness be, and enjoy its company.
0 comments:
Post a Comment