Yesterday I decided I was perfectly content. At the time I was sitting in my AC cooled house watching a really, really bad science fiction movie called Sharktopus, hunting on-line for a DVD of The Thing with Two Heads and eating muhammara and bread. All of a sudden I had a revelation. I didn’t need a thing.
When I was growing up, people asked me what I wanted to be, but they never asked me how I wanted to feel. If you think about it, that seems a really important question. How did I want to greet every day of my life? Did I want to bemoan my fate or smile at the luck of having another day. I suppose I could have said that whatever I chose to do had to make me happy, but no little kid would think that in a million years. Besides, I was too busy thinking about the next day or the coming weekend, about as far ahead as I could handle. I knew I wanted to travel suffering as I was from Barrett syndrome, but I had no idea where. Somewhere, anywhere was okay with me. I didn’t have a plan. Traveling for the sake of traveling just hung around my head and never left.
In the long run, I have always been thankful for the trip of my life. It has been far more than I could ever have imagined. I’d tell ten-year old me to enjoy what’s coming. I’d also tell the young me not to worry. Bad times don’t last. Good memories do.
No question about it: I am content, and I greet every day with a grin.


