A Contented Life

I don’t know if it’s that time of year (when the rain begins, it feels like it stays forever). Maybe it's the fact that I will be 45 in June and I have to add yet another cancer screening to my already lengthy list (the dreaded colonoscopy). Or perhaps it's the retirement looming with its smiling face and promises of a freedom that I have only ever dreamt about. It could even be the chemical imbalance that stays a consistent part of my everyday life. Whatever the reason, I have felt a heaviness that enjoys sitting on my chest like a chubby elephant (don't worry, it's not the heart attack feeling kind).

I try to ignore the feeling, chalk it up to seasonal depression (yes, it's a thing) and think about how it feels when my feet hit the sand. How the sound of the push and pull of the ocean feels to my deprived ears and how my body reacts when the sun heats my body completely.

Anyone could and should be happy in such a place and I don’t really know if it’s the sun and the necessary vitamins it provides, the ocean and the necessary peace it provides, or the fact that I’m doing what I love:  writing every day, making funny (only to me) videos and befriending people from around the world who have also discovered this little piece of paradise.  This all causes me to wonder, however, what really makes up a life anyway.  Is it the job that you go to all day every day, the coworkers that you deal with, is that what becomes your world?  And maybe for some all of that does matter.  Their lives, their very essence is tied to what they do Monday through Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM (if their lucky).  Does that make a life happy or is it family that really is the key.  Having children, seeing them grow, being involved in all the baseball, basketball, football games, the cheer and dance competitions, is that what fulfills a person? 

I fear I may be an actual narcissist at heart, for none of those things fill my heart with any kind of joy.  Spending time with good friends, reading in complete silence, walking and then walking some more, but not in a middle America neighborhood, where all of the houses look exactly the same and you imagine the people who reside in them are too similar to really befriend, but a place with history, where nature becomes a character who shares the walk with you.   This to me is pieces of heaven that when put together makes my heart want to burst with gratitude that I am afforded to do such things.  Maybe not now, in this moment, as I have to deal with the rain, and people who I never truly feel get me, or if they do they don’t like what they get, which isn't really bothersome per se, but makes me feel like I’m a triangle trying to pass as a square.

All of this to say, that the beach, the ocean, the open minded expats are in my future and it’s a future that I can’t wait to be a part of; I just wish I didn’t feel like I’m waiting my life away.  Waiting for the next trip, the next adventure, the next weekend when I can feel real freedom flutter a life through my hair that makes me actually feel alive again when through the week I so often feel like a robotic version of myself.

I know I shouldn’t be complaining to you now because I do have so many things to look forward to, when so many others do not or maybe they don’t need those forward-thinking things to begin with.  They are content with their life as is, but I have never been one for much contentment; always preferring the next concert, the next trip, the next big thing that will make me feel lighter somehow and I can actually be my true self for a while or a fun character if I so prefer.