Saturday
Oct092010
What makes me happy
Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 07:17PM
Lately I've noticed that the moments when I feel happy and relaxed are often correlated with moments that feel tribal--close friends and family cooking together, eating together, hanging out with kids, doing home-related nesting projects together. Did I just figure something out about myself? Or am I entering a new phase of life?
A year and some change ago, I moved into a house with eight other people. Close friends, but still, I was trepidatious about feeling crowded, invaded, taken over, out of control of my living space. Those emotions are occasionally present, but they are enormously overshadowed by the sheer joy I feel when a critical mass of us are home unwinding together.
Right now, I'm in Wisconsin at my friend Brendan's childhood home, for his wedding to his lovely lady Stina. Given the occasion, there's a convergence on this place of dear old friends and extended family of the couple. I don't know most of these people, but the glow of everyone happy to see each other, the kids running around, the cooking and cleaning and project-ing together, still lifts my mood.
I feel like maybe every year since I turned, oh, twenty-three, I have another "duh" moment about what's important in life. Each time, loved ones get larger and larger in my mental sphere, and career and artistic ambitions recede, percentage-wise.
Am I getting wise? Or lazy? Or is that the same thing?
Or maybe that's just not a very important question.
Stars are beautiful out here in rural WI!
XOXO to you all,
Alissa
A year and some change ago, I moved into a house with eight other people. Close friends, but still, I was trepidatious about feeling crowded, invaded, taken over, out of control of my living space. Those emotions are occasionally present, but they are enormously overshadowed by the sheer joy I feel when a critical mass of us are home unwinding together.
Right now, I'm in Wisconsin at my friend Brendan's childhood home, for his wedding to his lovely lady Stina. Given the occasion, there's a convergence on this place of dear old friends and extended family of the couple. I don't know most of these people, but the glow of everyone happy to see each other, the kids running around, the cooking and cleaning and project-ing together, still lifts my mood.
I feel like maybe every year since I turned, oh, twenty-three, I have another "duh" moment about what's important in life. Each time, loved ones get larger and larger in my mental sphere, and career and artistic ambitions recede, percentage-wise.
Am I getting wise? Or lazy? Or is that the same thing?
Or maybe that's just not a very important question.
Stars are beautiful out here in rural WI!
XOXO to you all,
Alissa
Reader Comments (2)
I recall a few years ago reading a summary of a study done on what millionaires do for fun. Millionaires generally have leisure time and the freedom to do whatever they want in it, so what they choose is probably indicative of what is most fun to people.
Turns out that the most common fun activities indulged in by American millionaires across the board are (1) playing cards with their friends and family, and (2) attending sporting events where they watch their children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/etc play soccer or baseball or whatever.
Both are free, and both make the kind of tribal connection you're talking about.
Perhaps you're becoming neither wise nor lazy; perhaps you're becoming a millionaire! :-)
You know what? I don't think that this kind of new view on life and the world is really connected to you slowly getting older...and older (just kidding)
remember me returning home from my small wet island Britain? I started enjoying the institution family, which I had missed during those 7 months apart from my beloved ones. I started feeling home where there had been simply a house with a garden. I started a real partnership - not a child/parent relationship - with my partens.
So think back. has anythinh happened in your close past that you beginn to need a family or a familiar atmosphere?
kisses and hugs Ca.T
P.S. tell me if 'm becomming an aunt :p