Sometimes when I’m at work and watching the guys on the lot next to us doing things like digging holes, spray painting posts & planting shrubs, especially on gorgeous sunny days, I am envious. I would love to work outside. Even on the rainy days (although not quite as much on those days!) and I wish I had the flexibility to do that.
Sometimes when I’m heading to work in the morning and I see someone all bundled up and going for a jog at 7am, I am envious. I would love to have better hours (or better yet be independantly wealthy) so that I could go for a run whenever the urge struck me.
Then I think of the other side of the story….because, you see, a lot of the things that we see and read are, as we know, everyone else’s highlight reel. The guys that are outside planting shrubs may be envious of me that I get to sit indoors all day long, check my email, make a cup of tea whenever the urge strikes me….go to the bathroom conveniently and warmly. The person who is jogging up the road at 7am may be unemployed and going f0r a run early in the morning to burn off their excess anxiety over the job interview that they have coming up.
We all live in our own crystal ball where things look great for the person holding the ball looking in but perhaps that is an illusion for the person living in the ball looking out?
Why am I talking about this? Because tonight I am having a crystal ball night. It’s sunny outside and I’m going to drive home, eat a banana and go run through the park. Then I’ll come home and put dinner on, have a warm bath, eat a nice meal with my man and spend the rest of the evening sitting on the sofa reading my book. Sounds good, right? Well, what you may not see if you look in my ball is that I have a $700 car repair bill looming over my head which I cannot afford, I have food anxiety and disturbances related to exercise that ebb and flow depending on which way the wind is blowing. I will more than likely make our entire dinner (which I thought up and planned out in the first place), my lunch and Ray’s lunch by myself and then clean it all up while Ray watches the news. He’s not disrespectful, he’s just his own person and since me being my own person means I am a doer, I end up doing everything. I’ll try very hard not to get annoyed or snarky tonight. And when I’m sitting on the sofa tonight reading my book I’ll try like the dickens not to doze off….because for whatever reason my heart rate is retardedly low and my appointment with my cardiologist isn’t until the end of March, not that I would have the flexibility/ability to take time off work to go sooner anyway.
There’s not really a point to this post, I guess. I’ve just been ruminating on it today, what we see others have/get isn’t always reflective of what’s going on underneath. We see others getting what we wish we had and we fail to remember that maybe they had to dig like a sonofabitch to get what it looks like they’ve had all along.
Along with remembering that things are not always as they seem when I’m covetting someone else or something else, I have to remind myself sometimes not to live in my own highlight reel….because when it comes time to do the work to get the highlight it can be a rude awakening!
Fitty vs Fatty 