These are the days

My mother used to complain of always having a feeling of "impending doom". I believe most people feel this way, or at least people with any kind of depression or anxiety. I feel like this less and less as I re-wire my brain away from depressive thinking. But lately things have been so pleasant that I don't mind admitting I occasionally think, "ok, something f'd up has to happen now, right? Someone's going to steal the car, we'll get sick, the house will cave in from termite damage, right? Right?"

But then I remind myself, "no, this is how life is supposed to be. Things are supposed to just work. Things are supposed to be pleasant and enjoyable. You're not supposed to just suffer one calamity after the next." It reminds me of what I think whenever I'm driving up a stretch of hill on a really hot day. Remember when we were kids and the sides of the road would just be littered with overheated cars, steaming away? And now you almost never see that? That's progress. Because today, with advanced technology, things just WORK. It's the way life is supposed to be. It's what we've been working towards for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

I went to a really lovely wedding over the weekend. The drive there was one of the most hellish of my entire driving life - freeway jammed due to major accident, side streets jammed also, 115 degrees the whole way, nearly three hours for what should have been a half hour drive. I arrived all pissed off and frazzled like everyone else. But the wedding was fun and emotional and full of good friends. I stayed until nearly 1 am when I'd planned to go home by 8. And guess what? There were no overheated cars on the sides of the road!

This week my job is to swim in the pool and meet friends for lunch. Yup. That's it. Because I suffered through another event and now I get to enjoy the spoils of it. And I feel no* guilt about that.

*a little