Everybody's Doing It: Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness

New Year's resolutions make my stomach turn a bit.  I don't really see the point, other than that it's an excellent way to measure how long you've been doing something.

I wouldn't say that I've made any resolutions this year, but I did sit down on New Year's Eve and write a list of things I want to do in 2014, along with a daily schedule that I'm still working on to help me be productive and focused as I adjust to my new lifestyle.  Some of the things are things I've been slipping on lately - investing enough quality time with my grandfather, maintaining and losing weight, being an open and loving person, and just breathing through the reality of everyday stresses.  Some things are out of my control, but I can become at peace with that, I hope.  Some of the things on my list are things I've been meaning to do, but just have lacked motivation.  I don't want them to be on a to-do list, but they are, along with sleeping in tomorrow morning.  I want to write more, read more, and be more happy with the life I have, the home I'm making my own, and the wonderful people who I and they have chosen to be family.

Hands.  Rings.

My life has changed recently.  To be truthful, I didn't expect to feel the change as much as I have.  Reflecting, though, perhaps it's the enormity of it all.  Tom and I recently moved approximately 45 minutes from the area we've become accustomed to calling home, figured out how to divvy up all of the holidays for 2013, hosted a dinner for our immediate families, and got legally married (and are still planning a wedding for August!).  All of these things are wonderful things, but quite stressful all the same.  As a banker remarked the other day, "Just a housewife?  That's nice, too!"  And do you know what?  I like being a housewife.  It's really nice to be home and to not have to leave the house when it's frigid outdoors and to not get yelled at by a boss when I don't feel good.  It's practical in its way.

If you're a highly stereotypical single person, you're probably wondering what on earth more I could have to write about life, love, and the "pursuit" of happiness.  I'll have you know that being a housewife, a wife, a cook, a kitten parent, a good granddaughter, and everything else I am in life isn't always easy for me.  In fact, it seldom is.  I find life difficult.  Yes, life.  I'm not talking about the fancy stuff like perfectly painting the China cabinet or aligning the brushed nickel cabinet knobs so that their grain is all in vertical - believe it or not, I haven't done any of those things.

I'm talking about getting out of bed every morning and convincing myself that what I do has meaning in the lives of those I love.  I'm talking about hand washing the dishes in the first home I've ever lived in without a dishwasher and without a garbage disposal, too, even though washing dishes makes me feel queasy.  I'm talking about getting used to the fact that a lot of what I do will go unnoticed because the toilet being clean is how it's supposed to be.  I'm talking about feeling like everyone will judge my home more harshly because I should be taking care of it all of the time, as I've nothing "better" to do.  I'm talking about how weird it is to have grown up in the worlds I grew up in.  Seven years of public elementary school said that I could be anything I wanted to be and that women are no different from men.  Six years of Lutheran junior high and high school said that theoretically, I could do anything, but I should really look for a husband and honor him with obedience, preferably after teaching for a few years.  (There is some sarcasm intended here.)  Then I went to college for a few years, where things seemed to lean back to what many would call a "feminist" perspective, which again said I could be anything, but being a housewife only seemed a viable option in health, psychology, and sociology classrooms, along with fairly conservative Christian circles.  Maybe it's because I went to a school of poor kids and we don't see other options as viable.  I don't know.  Somehow, though, I feel as though there is some stickiness inherent in this housewifery situation.  It's like I'm allowed to have chosen to do anything other than what I'm doing right now.

In any case, I find this life difficult.  It's challenging for me, as much as people - even those I love - crack jokes about how I have "such a hard life" and do such "exciting" things like clean my apartment from top to bottom on New Year's Eve and wonder at the fact that I let it get so bad when that's my "only" responsibility.  As difficult as it is, however, I truly enjoy it.  I find these things enriching.  I've never enjoyed cleaning, but I've always loved cooking!  My hatred of cleaning will never be beaten, I don't think, nor will the constancy of the stress I feel while trying to maintain a neat home.  Rules I've never wanted to heed are now being asked by me to my dear husband.

I entreat him to follow to "one minute" rule as I have been - if it can be done in less than a minute, why not do it?  For example, I've always willing to hang my coat on a chair; why not just hang it in the closet?  It seems to help.  There's also a "ten minute" rule before bedtime - take ten minutes before getting ready for bed to pick up the stuff around the home that you've let fall by the wayside during the day.  To be perfectly honest, the one minute rule seems to make this one sort of obsolete, but still useful, I think, to have it mind!  Another I've implemented is one I read online, but which I also have hi-jacked from my first boss when I was a waitress seven - oh my heaven - years ago, "save your steps."  If I'm in the kitchen and heading to the bedroom - on the other side of the apartment, I look around and see what - if anything - around me needs to be transported along the way.

People ask me if I get bored and if I'm satisfied with this life.  I don't get bored.  I'm working on being satisfied; I certainly have been the last few days.  More importantly, however, I want to be happy for far longer than the typical "honeymoon period."  I want be happy.

In this noble attempt, I've read a few blog articles with ideas on how to be happy.  I also attempted to search for apps in Google Play on my phone one night as I laid awake to help me with my modern housewifery.  However, all I could find were books written before the Great Depression.  Hello, failings of modern life.  Anyway, back to one of those happiness blogs I mentioned.

"be HAPPIER in your HOME"

One blog entry I read this week is one simply entitled, "be HAPPIER in your HOME" and is a re-post of something from the great Apartment Therapy, though I enjoyed the picture and the vibe of this particular blog so much that I didn't even search for it there.  Anyway, this entry contains ten tips to make you - get this - happier in your home.  I find the tip there to be really helpful.  I've taken the first most to heart, so far, at least!  I've made my bed every day since reading this - I don't think I've ever make a bed for a four-day streak before!  Our bedroom now feels so much more comfortable, so welcoming, so calm during the day.  It's so nice to be able to plop on my bed to put my feet up and fall into plush fuzzy blanketed softness and comfort!  I also am seeking to get more sentimental things out and up, but as I'm sure many of you know, getting things out and up when you first settle in takes a bit of time!  I need to move a lot of my stuff over, still, but I do have some family pictures and artwork from my childhood home hanging up, a pillow sham someone once gave me as a thank you on my perfectly made bed, a fuzzy blanket from my great aunt who passed away folded over the recliner, lovely old books filled with other people's memories and sentiments, familiar books of mine, and gifts from  loved ones all around me and in every cupboard in my kitchen!  This blog suggest that we get more out of seeing such things than just when we got them, there's the sentimentality that comes with them - the planning of the event or trip, the actions and lives of those who gave it to you, and so much more.

Macklemore's got nothin' on me!

I agree.   In addition, I've found that simply calling this place my "home" instead of my "apartment" helps.  I call it my "house" pretty often, too!  I like it here in this lovely old apartment building near places I can walk for all my daily needs (except groceries!) and to indulge my love of thrift shopping, antique admiring, and restaurant experimentation.  Even with it's hissing radiators and squeaky floors, it's charming, warm, and has my two favorite boys in it for most of the day!

In my more vulnerable moments, I even find a way to quibble about the nature of the sentimentality I've attached to certain things in my home.  Is it really worthy?  The frames hanging in my living room hung in my childhood living room, but I hadn't thought of them for years until my aunt unearthed them in her basement this summer - my grandmother had set them aside for me.  Many of the things in those boxes remain there, in newspapers they've been with since 2005.  I don't know why Nana thought I needed some of these things.  I don't know how to properly display some of them and I feel a little bad that they remain there, but I don't know what to do with them.  Maybe I will someday.  For now, I have a few things up and I plan to modify the two in the living room eventually, but they work with what we have now.

Thankfully, in these moments, I know someone who's kind enough to tell me that Tom and I will make our own memories and remind me that being happy with what we have is key.  This Christmas, we were also blessed enough to have some particularly fantastic gifts from our loved ones.  Did you notice my comment above about seeing gifts in my kitchen cabinets?  We received so many great kitchen items and I can say with confidence that it's much nicer to cook the delicious things I enjoy cooking when I have the proper tools for doing so!  I think Tom might have bought a colander sooner if he knew I'd make pasta thrice in a week once I had one (I actually have two.  What a luxury!) and a small nonstick pan, whisk, and spatula had he known I'd be able to make a perfect omelette like the one I made this morning!

Life is wonderful.  Love is wonderful. Pursuing happiness is wonderful.

I am surrounded by wonderful things in a wonderful home in a wonderful area of a wonderful town in a wonderful place.  I do wonderful things that help those I love, like eat, clean, pray, cook, pet (Fox), laugh, get lunch, make boxes for items around the house, enter receipts into a budgeting tool, buy groceries, and... be who I am.  I know wonderful people who care for me daily, call me often, check in on me, indulge my tastes in movies, food, art, and decorating, laugh at my jokes, snuggle, and love me for who I am.  I'm getting pretty good at this modern housewifery and I've learned to manage my somewhat modern family with a traditional spin.  As wonderful as these things are, however, there is another key emotion at play.  Fear.

It's scary to live, love, and pursue happiness.

I second-guess myself often.  I wonder about the future.  I question the past.  I listen to music to drown out my thoughts.  I binge-watch shows to keep my mind off reality.  Sometimes, it feels like there is no point.  But then a voice in my heart asks, "What if there is a point?" and the very heart that asks it breaks because I know the answer.  Once, while taking Catechism classes, I confessed to my pastor grandfather that it bothered me that some people insist on prefacing or ending their prayers with, "If it is Your will," or some such variant.  I had never heard it before, as he was my pastor growing up.  He told me something I hope I'll never forget, "Pray for what you want.  God already knows what he wants."

Some people think that each of us decides his or her own future.  Some people believe a higher power decides our fate.  Me?  I believe it's a bit of both.  My life right now is the stuff of my dreams, but I never could have imagined it all coming together the way it has.  I believe in free will.  I believe in God.  If these two things can be true, I see no reason why our decisions and those of someone higher that me can work together to create my reality.

ATTENTION:  Those of you who don't believe mental disorders and
emotional issues are "real" or valid conditions.  You are wrong.
I hope no one ever suggests that you just "try."
It's frustrating and unhelpful.

I am happier with my life now than I have ever been.  I struggle, though.  Although some of the struggle comes from outside forces and stresses, much of it comes from within me.  I've always had issues with depression and the past year or so, I've developed some anxiety issues.  I don't think things are as easy as some people make them out to be.  I don't think it's fair to look at people and think that their lives must be easy, perfect, or whatever you deem them to be.  Every one of us has something that is difficult.  Every one of us struggles.  Many of these are invisible, silent, and too personal to mention.  Some of them are as obvious as mismatched shoes or a messy car.

I read a blog entry entitled "Killing Superwoman" and it seems rather true.  The claim of this entry is that we, as women - and I'd say the same goes for men, too, by the way - sometimes feel so pressured to be perfect or to get so much done that we compare ourselves to others.  This does little more than make us feel inferior and leads to one of two things: either attempting to do everything like that the person we've deemed "perfect" - and failing - or just giving up entirely because we are just realistic enough to know were going to fail. Upon some personal reflection, I've decided that the truth, as with many things, lies somewhere in between these two extremes.  I think everyone has a "super power" and in our current day and age - more than ever, perhaps - we display it as best as we can.  We have more outlets to do so.  For example, I seem to have a natural knack for cooking.  I do well at following recipes and I love making things up, too!  I've blogged about these and bragged about them on Facebook, but did I ever tell you about my "lentil soup?"  Trust me.  You don't want to hear about it.  Oh, you do?  Well, it was about six months ago and I had a craving for my college's mass-produced vegetarian lentil stew.  Mine was just plain awful.  Tom ate a serving of it and tried to make me feel better by saying he'd eat the rest of it, "Of course!"  I found it waiting in the refrigerator a few weeks later.  It was disgusting.  Also, you don't often see me posting photos of my perfectly decorated anything, do you?  For me, decor is a work in progress.  I'm not particularly great at it, but I like experimenting and I am quite happy in my home at the moment!

Sunday's decorating attempt:  lighted photo/card clothesline.  Not too shabby for $1.79 - just the clothespins!  =)

*          *          *

What's the point?
I suppose the simple point of this lengthy blog entry is that both in spite of and because of everything, I'm blessed with life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.  And the incredible part is that it's not a blessing bestowed solely upon me.  If you're reading this, you have life.  You have the ability to love and be loved - even when you don't feel you do, you do.  You also have the ability to pursue happiness, even if it is a daily struggle and as hard as getting up the courage to wash the dishes.

To address the questions I imagine are in many minds:  No, I'm not bored, pregnant, dissatisfied, or disappointed.  I'm trying to be good at the right now, I'm looking for jobs, and I want to focus on my family.  This is good, noble, and who I am.  I look forward to your acceptance of my lifestyle, but don't require it for my happiness.