Step by Step

Happiness step 1 – buy a new laptop or figure out how to make our current laptop not take six full minutes to power on and open up a word document. 

Happiness step 2 – stand up for myself. Find out what my work place policy is for pay increases and do something about it. 

Happiness step 3 – sign up for a creative writing class at the local college. Stop feeling like my mind is turning to mush. No matter how much writing I do at work, I still don’t feel like I’m exercising my true potential. 

Happiness step 4 – find some friends I like. 

Happiness step 5 – do these steps. 

*

Scott and I were very close to buying a house. We put in an offer on a place in North Douglas – where we want to live – the sellers put in a counter offer. And then we pulled out. I said the price wasn’t low enough for our needs. Which is essentially true. What’s also true is that I don’t love it. I want to be able to – if not love, then – really, really like a place we buy to call home. A place we intend to start a family in. A place that we’d plan to stay in for at least ten years, if not longer. 

Buying a house is like joining a club. It’s pledging one’s allegiance to Juneau. It’s saying – what so many have before – yes, Juneau is the place I want to be in right now and for a long, long time. It’s saying, while I may not necessarily feel like I fit in, I want to fit in. I want to plant roots and grow and see my as-yet-to-be-born children grow. It’s saying I want my family to be part of Juneau’s family. 

And maybe that’s what’s holding me up. This feeling like we don’t actually have a family here. Of course, neither Scott or I have blood family here, but we don’t have a big enough friend family either, a network of people who would help no matter what.

There are things to discount and write off as not necessary. I don’t think friendship is one them. 

Things are supposed to happen naturally; that’s when life is at its best. A natural flow of events and occurrences somehow leading into the next, unplanned but feeling as if they were somehow meant to be. Can home buying fall into that category? Can something so forced and contrived – a house – possibly feel like that? I think it can. I really do. Even in Juneau.

The other thing that’s holding me up – this feeling that money is a barrier. Like if we had more, it would allow us to be happier because we’d have more choice in what house to buy. I’ve been successful for most of my life never feeling like that, never feeling that lack of money could hold me back from doing something. Never feeling that not having enough was a problem. Whatever I needed to do (college through scholarships and loans) or wanted to do (travel through simple saving up) – happened. 

I guess I’m entering a new phase of life where everything seems more and more connected to money and dependent upon how much we have. Buying a house, traveling, healthcare, the thought of having kids. Am I dense that I didn’t see all of this coming? Or just in denial? Denial. I just didn’t want to believe it, that someday it would actually be about money, not just to other people, but to me. I have to start caring and not just caring enough to be frugal (because I’ve been frugal basically all my life) but caring in the sense that it will factor into what kind of life my as-yet-to-be-born child has. It’s not like I all of a sudden believe that money equals happiness, but I’m starting to see that money factors into permanence and commitment. 

I wanted to write to make myself feel better about not taking the house because it’s haunting me that we may have made the wrong decision. It’s worked somewhat. I’ve likely taken after my mom in being a complete worrier. Perhaps writing about it will allow me to sleep better. I know it’s not the right house at this particular time. I believe a home – where one plants roots – can be a natural thing.

I also wanted to get that list in writing. Because maybe then I will do it. 

A May Without Writing

A warm May night in North Douglas

I think these are called Shooting Stars

 

May was the long month. I can measure my months by stories I’ve done for the radio, each story getting its own folder. My story for May 1 was the carnival’s arrival, which seems like ages ago.

The traveling carnival that arrived in Juneau by ferry – rides, cotton candy, and over fifty carni folk – set up in the parking lot of the Nugget Mall. Interviewing the owner, who said screaming was music to her ears, felt like I had stepped into a different era. I watched as they blew up huge inflatable jumpy things for kids, hung up stuffed animal prizes that sat in piles on the ground, got their tents all set up . Within a day, everything was in place – even the sun – for the throngs of people who descended, many of whom had never before seen a carnival in Juneau. Rides cost $5, so did the games, the hand-dipped corndogs were a little more.

The carnival was in town for two weeks. I had driven by a few times and felt tempted by funnel cake but resisted and waited for Scott to return from a work trip. We had never gone to a carnival together. Even though we’ve been together for seven years, this is one of a few simple things that we had never done until recently, like bowling. I love carnivals – the rides and walking among the lit up tents of impossible games, the distant sounds of screams and squeals and laughter, the junk food.

Juneau’s carnival wasn’t quite up to par with the ones of my past – the Barnstable Fair in Cape Cod, Great Adventure, the fair at Yonkers Raceway. It’s likely because I’m older and rides seems too expensive, or because it couldn’t compare in scope and size. But there was still magic there – when Scott and I were hanging upside down at the top of the Zipper both wondering why we paid money to subject ourselves to such torture. We laughed and screamed and were so happy to be stuck inside a carnival ride together.

 *

Ever since we moved into our present apartment mid-April, Lota stopped wanting to sleep with us. He’d maybe start the night on the bed but within 15 minutes he’d jump off. He wouldn’t go far but it seemed like he’d outgrown needing the comfort of sleeping with other warm bodies.

Toward the end of May, Lota got neutered. When Scott dropped him off at my office in the afternoon, Lota was sleepy and slow, the anesthesia still doing its job. He had a new pink scar and he just seemed vulnerable. Throughout the late afternoon and evening, Lota’s head would shake as if he had Parkinson’s. Shake and stop, shake and stop. We figured it was the anesthesia wearing off.

That night, Lota slept with us. And it felt good to be needed again.

*

Rosie, Casey, and I rotate who covers city council meetings on Mondays, which is nice because they are so undesirable. During the legislative session, since I was helping to produce the TV coverage on Mondays and often had to stay late at work those days, I got a free pass from having to go to city council. Once May’s meeting came around, Casey and Rosie were ready for it to be my turn, and I got the special pleasure of reporting on the meeting where the budget was passed. Joy of all joys.

The meeting ended at ten and after unsuccessfully trying to find late night food, I returned to the station tired and nervous with hours of tape to comb through. I was nervous because I hate reporting on budget stuff and felt like I didn’t have nearly all the pieces. As I walked down the hallway and into my office, I heard music wafting from one of the studios – it was Down to the River to Pray.

I thought of our Tanzanian students who, having been taught it by one of the early volunteers, would often sing the song on buses, while cleaning, in groups. They’d incorporate each other’s names into the lyrics or the name of teachers who were with them. “Oh Lisa, let’s go down, let’s go down, come on down. Oh Lisa, let’s go down, down to the river and pray.”

I got a pang of sadness hearing the song and wishing beyond wishes I could be with them, rather than in my office with hours upon hours of work left before me.

I ended up going home at 5:30 the next morning, shutting the apartment door behind me as Scott walked down the stairs. His eyes still squinty, his voice in a whisper – “You just got home?” I fell into the bed as he started his morning routine, my eyes shutting as he laid another blanker on top of me.

I’m starting to wonder if teaching those students will end up being the best thing I do in my life, which at once makes me proud and sad. Sad because it’s already happened.