Atmosphere is Everything.

I have a beautiful little life. Not necessarily extraordinary, but incredibly beautiful. Committed life agrees so well with me; it has for the last four years, and of the last year of those, married life is just as sweet. I've always longed for a harmonious existence with people in close proximity to me; I just wanted a mild-tempered home. My mom and I had a pretty good relationship, but she was usually onto SOMEbody about SOMEthing...usually a brother about something trivial but that became blown out of proportion by both of them. It's a sad way to live, with the people in the household always churning with something, waiting to unleash it on the first one to cross them. I'm well-aquainted with all the ins and outs of domestic discord - though thankfully not the violent kind at the hand of either parent or to each other - and am so done with it. I can't figure out why so many people haven't figured out that the key to happiness is establishing a consistently harmonious relationship with those who are closest to them. Really, what is the point of living your life day in and day out at odds with somebody over stupid things? I don't understand why they don't just say "Enough! Let's be friends, please?" I'm so disgusted when I see family members treating each other like crap, especially adults, because I am so beyond that stage in my life that I think everybody else should be too. I mean isn't it common knowledge to everyone, now that it's well-known by me? ;) :P. But no, I know it doesn't work like that; everybody is at their own stage of development, and if they're 60+, well, God (please) help them.

My familiarity with and distaste for discord made me especially keen to create a good environment in my own small world. Jamie and I don't often have an off day, or hour even, but when we do, we've built our relationship on the most straightforward kind of honesty that I've ever known about, that if there's a problem we (usually I :P) just have out with it, and then we can move on. Jamie is so mild that the only outbursts are from me, and they're short-lived and harmless enough 'cause he just listens. I feel so good about the prevailing atmosphere of goodwill and real harmony that stays with us. Our life might just be about as good as it gets, as far as coupleships go.

Especially since couples frequently fight about money, and as far as I remember we've never had reason to really argue about money... I feel really good about that too by the way. I LOVE being able to save a ton of money over the summer. It makes me feel really good about my contribution to our financial well-being. For some reason, when I'm not employed I start to get depressed that I'm not making any money, and I feel like I'm not contributing much of anything to our relationship. I'm not sure where I got these feelings from, but they're very real and very debilitating. So I'm pretty sure I'll always try to stay employed at least a little bit lol. I don't like working very much at these silly little jobs that mean nothing. I'm not lazy in the most obvious sense, I'm just selective about what deserves my passion and my little jobs are not that passion-inducing. I don't dislike work by itself, see. I dislike the jobs that my work goes into. I may have said this before, but the only work I see as worth anything to me is physical labor. Some people feel like applying their minds - or mildly applying their bodies by working a computer or filing - is a worthwhile job, and that's fine. If you can be happy working a register, a computer, or drawing up blueprints, or making sales calls, then more power to you. But for me that is not where my true power or happiness lies. My true power lies in my body. My soul and my body is happy when I am in motion. Therefore, I have decided to be a farmer. I've always wanted to have a farm, and I'm going to make it happen soon. I want goats, a garden, chickens, a couple of horses... enough to keep me busy in the only way I was ever meant to be busy.

The other way I am meant to be occupied is with children. I can't wait to have five or ten underfoot. Even more important to me than cultivating living things outside is cultivating living things indoors, filling their little hearts and souls with love, and filling their minds with important things, teaching them skills that will last them a lifetime. God, it's such a joy, having tiny humans around. I simply cannot wait to have my own. The sooner the better. Oh, and one more thing, I've given up on ever having more money than the average Joe, and that is entirely okay with me. I am well beyond the poverty I grew up with, and that spells financial contentment for me :). I believe we will always be comfortable, though perhaps never affluent. Man, my life is truly one worth hanging onto forever; it will always be an awfully big adventure ;).

What Really Counts?

Those who know me best know that I am not very good at the little social niceties that some people are so good at, like calling from time to time just to check in, or passing along little things you might find interesting, and other things like that. I'm just not good at maintaining a steady casual social give-and-take with really anyone who isn't close to me geographically. For some reason I dread phonecalls, and am no good at sending notes. I write them, sure, but somehow they hardly ever make it to the intended recipient, and if they do it's months overdue. I'm not sure why I'm this way; I'm not sure why I don't seek out ongoing or frequent contact with the people I love who aren't near me. I can say though, that anyone who really needs something from me - something I can do or give - I'm all there. But if it's just idle contact? I'm just not your girl for some reason. I'm not sure which is better... being someone who's there all the time for chit-chat and stuff, or someone who's only there when you really need them, lol.

I really think I may be a hermit at heart, or maybe more like I just should have lived when everybody stayed in the same place their whole lives lol, cause I can do the interpersonal thing on a face-to-face basis, as long as the other person isn't needy or overbearing. If we can have healthy, mutually enjoyable time together, I love that stuff and am pretty good at making fun, wholesome times with people...pretty much anybody who doesn't irritate me by virtue of just who they are lol. I can count those on one hand though, out of everyone I know.

If you do what you've always done....

I'm thinking about the state of our Union, and how things could change, and I'm wondering what the effect would be to take a completely understated approach to the things we've always been gung-ho and ho-rah about. What if we did as the Japanese did after WWII and adopt a pacifist outlook, putting all our military personnel on reserves indefinitely and using the military budget only for technological advancement. What if we stopped being so goddamned greedy and tried to establish a little economic equality for the people of our country, and the world. What if, instead of trying to make an extra buck by off-shoring, we try to create jobs in the US for our fellow citizens, and I don't know, maybe try to get some economic stability instead of pretending there's still money to blow? What if we exiled all the crooked politicians and amend the constitution to include a process by which we can depose government officials when they're becoming too corrupt? Maybe then we could get some policies in place to actually make a difference for our earth's well-being, like switching to CNG, regulating car use, finding alternative packaging to lessen what goes to the landfills... Will this make any difference? I don't know. I'm not that well-informed on the cause and effect of each of these actions. So many of the issues surrounding our national and global well-being are multi-faceted and complex, and I don't really know how to trace all of them; but the saying "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got" is true. Something's gotta give.

The Search.

Lately my need for things that have meaning has become pretty acute. My collision with grief has left me with a need to go outside of myself - to find things to focus on and believe in - to keep from getting sucked under. So far these things have had a wide range, and I try to hone them down to things that really mean something to me; things that will really make a difference and not just be to my benefit. I've always wanted to have a great way of serving others that is sustainable and enjoyable for me. I have a hard time finding meaningful opportunities to volunteer in the US, and a "mission trip" is very expensive, and lately I equate the spread of religion with the spread of a kind of disease, so their true motives do not match mine. My only motive is to spread a better quality of life with no strings attached, and certainly no religious aim. Moving on, I also take issue with donating money to any charities, since generally their overhead is so high that a sad amount actually makes it to their target beneficiaries. I did find an approach that feels right to me, which is to donate goods instead of money. It's really what I've always wanted to be able to do, but the resources to do so are hard to find. In fact, so few places actually offer a way to do that, claiming they just need money, that I'm still having a hard time finding places to send commodities as opposed to money.
But anyway, this need to pare my life down to the most meaningful things is kind of taking over. I have always been averse to the way electronics have a way of sucking you in, and I L-O-V-E the more traditional ways of connecting with the people you love, like playing together, talking, working side-by-side -- these are my favorites. I have also discovered that I do not do well with long-distance relationships of ANY kind. I dislike communication in any form apart from in person. The friendships I've had over the years fade with time when our lives take us in different directions. Mostly because words truly are cheap. Words are almost always calculated to one aim or another and you don't always get to a person's soul by listening to them talk. I see a person's soul in their eyes, their laughter, their hugs, and other such things. When I don't get to interact with a person this way, I feel like I don't get all of them and that they have the opportunity to color my perceptions of them by using their words, rather than me being able to formulate my own perceptions by being able to observe them. There are few people who are so themselves when I speak to them that I feel like they are here with me. Those are the people I love the best :) ( Like you, Dad ;) ). This same sense of meaning is honed even when I listen to music. I can tell when the artist is singing with their soul or not. I have always eschewed all things superficial, but now even more. I feel like I need to pick and choose the things I surround myself with, and that the world is full of deep richness if you take the time to sift for it. It doesn't usually take much sifting, but sometimes I get so inundated by these people who have lost their sense of the depth of life that I'm left with nothing but disgust. People talk about such stupid things! Sometimes it's too much. I get so bored and frustrated listening to people talk about themselves, as though they are so interesting! Nope. Not to me. I have never considered myself that interesting, and never to the point that that's the only conversation I can make. I don't burden dialogue with anyone by painting the things I do as anything but mundane, but the people I find myself talking to think of themselves as the greatest thing. It annoys me a lot. I'm considering closing my Facebook account because if anything in this world is narcissistic, it is Facebook! I do not really need to know what people are doing every hour of the day. It taints my idea of humanity, reading what people deem interesting - which is themselves and what they are doing all day. It's such a turn-off to me for people I otherwise love. This is another disease that's reaching epidemic status - narcissism. Or has it always been this way, and my perception is just developing as I get older? Who knows.