Things About Getting Cocky

I get that I've been bragging a lot. I mean, the tropical wonderland of Brazil, all this blather about contentedness... I've kind of been rubbing it in your face, right? Well pride goeth before every good fall, doesn't it?

It's just that the minute you start feeling good about yourself, something is bound to go wrong. At least in my life that seems to prove true over and over again. Not that wrong is always bad. In fact usually it's pretty hilarious. Later on. But I have been getting way too cocky and it's catching up with me. Like when you finally get a few minutes of success on your toe edge when you're out snowboarding and suddenly you think you're cool enough to rock acid washed jeggings. And then the $500 latch that you had replaced on your stupid car breaks AGAIN, only this time in the UNLATCHED position, and the back door flops open every time you hit a bump, flashing the dome lights in your rig all the way home like a mobile rave.

Or like when you think you're tough enough to do hard core yoga two days in a row AND go snowboarding and slam your less-than petite frame on the ice several hundred times and then you wake up feeling like something chained down to a steel table in Dr. Frankensteins laboratory. Except you're not chained down and you have to actually get up and do stuff. Like work. And sitting on really uncomfortable bleachers for a lot of hours.

I really need to quit bragging, and getting all comfortable with myself. Because it doesn't change the fact that things break, technology freezes and catastrophes prevail as soon as I walk into the room and there will always be a trail of disaster following me for all of us to laugh at. And if we don't all laugh at the trail of disaster following me then I will surely need to be committed to an insane asylum where I can quit disastering and just cuddle with a padded wall all day long.

The minute I start to think that I actually have my shit together somebody is gonna faithfully remind me that my writing is schmaltzy, I still make minimum wage in most of my jobs and my driving habits may or may not be legal. But while we're laughing about the bungee cords holding the rear door of my ridiculously overpriced luxury SUV closed, can we also take a moment to remember all the cool stuff that I've done? Like Brazil, and getting on my toe edge. And TOTALLY rocking jeggings. ( <---- ok so really I slinked from shadow to shadow to avoid being caught in public, but I did wear them out of the house.)

Things About Contentment

If you were to ask the Experts On My Life (i.e. my Mom, sisters, BFFs and Kids) what my deepest, darkest flaw is, other than impulse buying,  I can imagine with little to no hesitation that my standout weakness, and also probably The Only Thing Wrong With Me (ahem) that they would point out is my lack of contentment.

I have been examining this "issue" in my life more closely lately, as fate has given me ample opportunity to do some self examining in recent days. Living without a husband to examine yourself for you creates such windows of time for introspection. Oddly enough, lately I have been more content in my life, even going without certain things, like cable TV and kisses, than I have been at any memorable time in my life. I have been wondering why. And don't really have answers, but I do have some speculation...

The last few days/weeks/months have been a laughable cavalcade of ridiculously bad luck at my house. I am inclined to think that bad luck was one of the many things left behind when HE moved out. I am even more inclined to think that when I hear that maybe HE probably has a new girlfriend, and that HE is now a search and extraction heli-rappeller for the Air Force (do they have those?) and a Keynote Speaker at Events Of Regional Importance, and other almost unbelievable good-lucky things, so perhaps HE left all of HIS bad luck at our house. Which is why we have flesh eating bacterial diseases, fleas, and a myriad of other pestilent diseases, toilet floods, late charges on internet bills that we payed ahead, auto-payed and double payed because they sent our pay-ahead money to HIM as a refund when HE took HIS name off the bill, doubled phone bills because HIS iPhone contract is still sitting on my bill to the tune of $360, speeding tickets, disobedient teenagers, canine aural hematomas and much, much, much more going on. But then I remember that HE always had lucky-sounding things happening, or about to happen, even when HE was getting slammed with bad luck, like losing the Woman of HIS dreams and her four awesome kids and three awesome dogs, even with flesh eating bacteria and aural hematomas. So I feel like it's safe to say that HE probably took HIS luck with him, good or bad, and all of this is just a chance for me to learn contentedness in the middle of the storm.

And the craziest thing about it all: I am content. Maybe because even with the raging storm of crazy-bad luck, there is peace at home. In spite of the vicious teenagers and tottering-on-the-brink finances, there is peace. The flesh-eating bacteria healed. The fleas went away. The money comes and goes just like always, and a year from now I won't remember the stupid $500 that went to fixing all of the dumb-luck issues that popped up. We have food on the shelf of a house that is warm and we have each other. And if that is no good, we have other people too. Even in my loneliness I am content. Because I have tasted enough of uncomfortable and unhealthy relationship to know that peaceful loneliness is better sometimes.

November is the month of gratitude. Really, it should be one of twelve months of gratitude, but people like to talk about it more in November, so here I am, being all trendy.

I am grateful. For the money to pay the silly bills. For the medicine to cure the plagues. For the insurance to pay for the medicine so the money can pay the silly redundant bills. For the people that we love. The ones who take care of us. For the chilly fall weather and sweaters. For awesome healthy kids, even when they're incorrigible. For Halle NOT being the student randomly stabbed in her dorm (prayers to that family). For no pregnancies, no deaths, no shut off notices, no starving, no major losses, except to the Gosh Darn Patriots (I am NOT content about football right now). For dogs, even with their pestilences. For work, even when it sucks. I am grateful. And because I am grateful, I am content. Because gratitude leads to contentment. And ingratitude leads to discontent. And I am tired of both of those things.

Happy November. And happy gratitude. And happy contentment.