A Sigh of Relief

I like to write. I really, really do. There's something satisfying about painting a picture with words. (Probably because I have never been good with actual paint.) But my posts during the last couple of weeks really haven't been satisfying at all. I've been so tired and so self-focused that I've been missing a lot of what's important.

I've been thinking a lot about babies and houses. At some point, I came upon the idea that a baby demands a house, and I have not been able to get my mind off of babies. I calculated mortgage costs, down payment costs, and baby costs. And I have confessed my selfishness to a few people who tell me that it is ok to have babies on the brain and even dwell on them. It's womanly and it's my right and it's normal.

True.
But.

I mentioned before that I have a tendency to hop from exciting thing to exciting thing and hardly savor the good stuff before asking for more. Maybe I didn't say it well, and maybe it didn't come out that way- my last two blog entries have been mainly attempts to sort out emotions- but that is me. I'm always wondering what can be changed, what can be better, what can I try next. This is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because it helps me to actively improve who I am, the kind of choices I make, the kind of life I am living. I like that. But out of balance, it is also the trigger in me that says that the roses can be smelled later. Right now, we are moving on to bigger and better things! The problem is that the roses usually wilt before I come back to them. I don't like that.

A friend of mine came to yoga class with me last night. He is a friend who I don't get to sit down and have coffee and talk with enough, so he asked me about life. Initially, I gave the pat, "good," but then I edited my statement and said that I don't know how to answer that question. There are days that I feel really hopeful and excited and there are days that I'd like to anounce to the world that I am moving to Hawaii. But then I started to talk about some of the myriad of people in my life, and I just visibly brightened up and I stayed that way.

That exchange got me thinking. The most important things in my life are relationships. Which don't require that I own a house or have a baby or really anything material. And this is obvious. But for the past few weeks, I have been searching for something to put me back on the road to contentment, and I realized. I have to choose contentment. I can write a long list of things I want, and I can dwell on that, and then I can create a plan for obtaining those things.
Or I can think about what I really treasure in life, and what really lights me up. And those things are almost always people. And I'm quite pleased with that.