I find myself thinking of this a lot. A life worth living.
Well readers? Do you have a life worth living?
I don’t mean this in a morose death sort of way. I think of it in a fulfilled, enjoyment, happy sort of way. Are you living a life worth living? Are you doing what you want to do? Are you who you want to be with? Are you where you want to live? Are you working where you want to work? Are you happy where you are in life right now? All these questions can be rolled into one for me…. Are you living a life worth living.
I think of this big question, roll it around in my mind and see how it sits with my life… and my mind inevitably gravitates to my older Brother. We don’t speak much these days. As life happens, we married, moved, got involved with our lives. He’s the only sibling I’ve ever had, that is until he got married and made one of my best friends into my sister. He’s moved just about once year for as long as I’ve been married if not longer. He’s been through ups and downs, and all the other rigmarole, and now he’s got it.
He’s reached that brass ring. (You know the one where people always assume means rich enough or pretty enough or popular enough then I’ll be THERE, I’ll have achieved IT). Except in reality it’s none of those little things.
He and his wife have one of the best marriages I have ever seen. Not just comfortable, but loving, understanding, valued. It reminds me of my parents marriage, my grandparents marriage. They live in a place that they love, not just love but a place that fits. They are making a farm and have farm animals. They grow things, they live off their land and are learning to limit their footprint and be self-sustainable. AND they love IT. They have found things that they love to do whether it be writing, knitting, pottery or farming. He started his own company and in this very hard climate, made it work.
They are happy. I think they could live in a card board box and find the happy part of that. It’s not necessarily what they are doing or what they have that I am referring to, but how they do it, how it gives them joy, how it makes them happy. This is that brass ring. That joy, that happiness. That is a life worth living.
I think of all this, I think of my big brother, his wife, his life and I smile and I know that I have finally found that too. A life worth living. Leave it to the person who first taught me cursive in the middle of the night on my little chalkboard to also teach me how to stop and enjoy my life for what it is. I’m 31 and still learning from him, albeit through a distance.
Its not easy to take a hard look at your life, and see that though you had the best intentions at heart, you were working for the wrong things. It’s almost strange that when I stopped trying so hard, and just enjoyed things for what they are, that it all got easier. It’s a decision that I made two months ago, and I have yet to regret it. Time to live. Time to enjoy. Time to have a life worth living. And in that simple truth, I believe I found myself again.
I am camping again, something I haven’t done in 5 years. I am scrapbooking again, something I haven’t done a year and a half. I have pets again, something I didn’t have for 3 years. I am doing more than going to work and coming home. I am enjoying. And the biggest thing is that I made the decision that I can have a life worth living all on my own. In April Erich and I reached the agreement that in a year we will be financially able to divorce. He has until next June to get himself and his health in order and he has to do it on his own.
If he chooses to do so, chooses to take the steps to get his health conditions in order and increase his overall quality of life, chooses to enjoy life, chooses to enjoy life with his daughter and wife. Well, I think it’s wonderful. More than wonderful, amazing. To have someone that I can share this life with would be wonderful. We will enjoy the little things in life together. We will raise our daughter, and go camping and do odd house projects and garden and travel, see places like Luxembourg and Denmark. It would make me eternally happy for my soul mate to join me in a life worth living.
If he doesn’t, then he’s made that decision. If he chooses not to live this life, not to take care of himself so he can live longer, live with less pain, to just live, then I can’t fault him. A person has to do what makes them happy and if being unhappy is what he wants, then there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to change that. There are no ultimatums, no more arguments or fights. It’s not my choice and there is nothing I can do or say to change that.
It’s not that I don’t care, because I do, I care deeply. I care and I have woken up. I have woken up to the life that I have. I have woken up to joy that is already here every single day. I have woken up to my life, my life worth living. And Because I have woken up, I will not go back to the way it was and I won’t subject my child to that unhappiness. So it has come to pass that a life worth living may end up being without him. And as sad as the thought of it makes me, I am still okay with that. Because I have a life worth living.
It’s come about in a strange way, but I finally have it. I have a life worth living and I will never ever take it for granted again.
So Thanks Big Brother. Even though he didn’t do anything intentional, it’s rare in this day and age to have an older sibling that you can look up to. That’s just the great guy he’s always been.
