Default setting; upgrades would be appreciated
Bad things with close proximity:
1. Gaelen died driving home from mountain climbing.
2. H didn't get the Most Awesome Job in the World (and, to date, the only interview he's been confident about).
3. Glen, quadriplegic*, finally died. Only I wonder if this is good or bad.
Good things with close proximity
1. I had an interview today. Only I wonder if this is good or bad as it's for a job I don't really want, but rather, simply need.
Maybe it's good that H and I are in good health (well, excepting those damn cramps and H's ulcer), but the point is we're not dying, we're not in constant pain, we're not in debt (yet). Major family traumas seem to be at a minimum right now. If things could be much worse, then I guess we're at default setting. Not a horrid place to be, but a place at which it's hard to be cognitively appreciative. Who notices that life is okay until there's a catalyst that sends it to "bad"?
The idealist in me says to appreciate the here and now; the cynic says the here and now sucks and wishes life would improve (and by improve we mean get jobs and disposable income so we can buy a new couch, stop worrying about the encroaching holidays, and feel free to go to movies or eat out again). This time I'm rooting for the idealistic side: those three bad things have really brought us down this past month but life could be so much worse. I'm just not sure that that's a good enough reason to count as a "good" thing.
-A.
(*Strange that he died just before Christopher Reeve. The world is v. weird these days.)