A challenge for you.
Not a competition, not a contest.
Do you think you can enjoy your life? I mean really, truly, enjoy (take delight in, marvel at, be grateful for) your life?
Because if you’re reading this, I think you can.
Cause if I can, then you most certainly can.
I’m newly divorced.
My car is over 14 years old and has 240,000ish miles on it.
My credit is shot. I’m supposed to go to Europe with a friend next year. She bought her plane tix on credit card this month. I have to wait until I can save the cash.
I live in a 33 foot travel trailer and sleep in a twin sized bed (like a teenager). My bed is also my chair for my desk, where I work from home – mostly standing. Standing is always more comfortable than sitting on the bed. But the sitting on the bed works when I’m extra exhausted. I have no bathtub, at least not one big enough for an exhausted single mama to soak in with some lavender and epsom salt.
It IS big enough for my 4 year old to bathe in, which is for me, a sign that peace and rest are within grasp. Yes, God bless you, tiny bathtub. I can let my kid entertain himself without the iPad for a bit before ushering him off to bed.
Where I will lay next to him in his bottom of the bunk bed, on the hard thinly carpeted trailer floor, for the next 20-40 minutes. Maybe holding his hand, maybe with his arm draped over my neck, reminding him to stop talking, to stop making shadow puppets, to stop whispering, “I love you” in my ear and kissing me on the cheek as various forms of bedtime resistance.
And I may or may not fall asleep. But I hope I don’t, because there is likely one more email or post I have to complete before I can really allow my brain to shut down. If I do fall asleep, it’s like there’s an electromagnet pulling me towards my bed and my brain takes longer to de-fuzz what it is I need to do.
Only to wake up in the morning and do it all again. To either sneak around and get ready before kid wakes up so I can get him off to school in time. Or to stay in bed until kid wakes up and “sneaks” into bed to “wake me up” (while I do everything I can to wake up and get work rolling on on my phone).
Then to navigate attention between tasks for work during the day and making sure the kid isn’t just watching “episodes” all day but is also doing learning activities and maybe even, God forbid, playing outside for a little bit or with “toys” (ew, toys? like boring plastic toys?).
Don’t even get me started on trying to cook dinner. Let alone breakfast or lunch. Really, who has time for all of this?
Thank God though for things you don’t have to cook; like yogurt and almonds and fresh fruit and Trader Joe’s cereal bars and sandwiches and the occasional pre-made salad for mom, if she remembers to eat it before the expiration date.
So tomorrow is clean up the debris from Hurricane Thisweek. And next Saturday will be the day to clean up debris from Hurricane Nextweek.
Have I mentioned the fact that my travel trailer is parked in my 84-year-old Grandma’s backyard? Who is not at full mental capacity any more? There’s also that.
Oh, and having to empty my own… holding tank. Of the variety you’re preferring to imagine I not be referring to.
So, did we cover every kind of difficulty and minor inconvenience? I could probably find more but the point is, if I can be truly happy and satisfied with MY life, and confident of it’s ever increasing potential for being better, I think you can too.
I am learning each day how to truly be present with my son, and grateful for what I have. I create an abundance even though by material possessions I have practically nothing.
I am so rich in love. There is so much potential for everything to continue to get better. It’s really okay that I got divorced. It’s really not the end of the world. It’s really okay that I live in a recreational vehicle. It’s not just a tolerable outcome. I can ENJOY my life. I can find the moments of joy in my life and be in them.
Can you do that? Can you enjoy your life, on a basis of moment by moment? Can you enjoy the affection and love of someone who at times irritates you? Can you just isolate that moment of wonder and enjoy that? Find that thing in each moment. If you can find that speck in every moment of your day, that thing that there is to enjoy; be it an awareness that you have breath in your lungs or the aliveness of a thrilling moment… find that.
You can. You will.