Basic Joy

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Life shopping

My childhood best friend Shelly and I used to take the Sears catalog and "call" an item on every page spread.
"Oh! I call the green shimmery dress..."
"Well, I get the leopard print pajamas..."
on and on through the whole book, through lingerie (interesting and educational!) and power tools (I call the riding lawnmower!) and jewelry (where subtle and understated was not in our vocabulary).

Then we'd shut the book and go climb trees and pretend Donny Osmond was our boyfriend. (We were good at sharing him.) The wanting of things didn't get in the way of living our real lives; it was just a game of choosing and figuring out what we liked. We knew we couldn't have everything in there but we knew what we'd choose if we were given a choice of wigs, that's for sure.


* * *

Recently it has come to my attention that I have been treating my forays into blogland like a catalog of regrets and longing, thinking wistfully that I would love to have everyone else's life but my own
{ oh! I wish I had...
a newborn baby with sweet eyelashes...
a fabulous closet of shoes...
a big happy brood of six children...
a marathon-running body...
a fixer-upper cottage in France...
a career as an actress on Broadway...
a flair for dressing with just the right knack...
exquisite phototaking talents...
a bestselling novel...
a husband who works from home...
big jolly dinners with extended family who live nearby...
an obsession with cleanliness (or at least a very clean house)...
such a hilarious way of writing about life...
etcetera...}

When I should be treating these views as a fascinating museum of lives and a chance to celebrate differentness and sameness, to say "good for her" and "well done" and "I feel for you."
{Okay, with the secret hope that you have dustbunnies sometimes, too}

I like my life. I do.
It's constructed out of a series of choices and silly luck (both good and bad) and trade-offs.
Yours is too. I like that about all of us.

I'm just relearning that lesson about shutting the book, walking away, and living my own life.
{And cheering you on while you live yours.}