What I realize

What I realize from time to time (not nearly as often as I should) is that I am joyful, happy, satisfied, content, fulfilled.

The reason I avoid realizing how complete I am with my life is that my life brings me into daily contact with people who are not. And I feel the brush of guilt whenever I recognize how different it is from most people to be truly at home with your life.

I know I 'shouldn't' feel guilty about being joyful most all the time, but brought face to face with the suffering and oppression and dissatisfaction of so many, I tend to think, "well, why am I one of the few lucky ones? Why should I be satisfied when many aren't? What gives me this right?"

And, never the less, I am extremely happy with life.

The least little thing brings me joy. My friend, John, fixed my computer and put a new rotating page saver on it. I've spent time just watching the views change every three minutes. There's pictures of wondrous libraries, full of light and decorations and world globes and books--so many books. And a couple of the half-dozen or so pictures are simply pictures of books. The ornate leaves of books the spines of books. Books and always books....Libraries from dreams with decorative tile floors and dark wood and paintings on the ceiling. High windows and several stories of shelves, all full of books.

Those pictures give me great joy and make me glad I am alive.

Another joy of my life is Public Radio. How mundane that looks, but it it true. At home, our radio is always on to WSHU from Sacred Heart University. It is a classical music station. Our bird, Maggie, loves WSHU so we leave it on all day, watching her dance and hearing her sing to the classics. On our car and truck radio, it's always WNPR, the talk radio station. I love WNPR and all the shows when I'm driving. But I've noticed that since we have music instead of news all day in our house, I'm calmer than I was when it was news all day. Maggie deserves credit for that. When I called in our yearly pledge to WSHU I told them in was in honor of our bird, Maggie. They said they'd say that on the air, but I must have been out of the room or in my car and didn't hear it. I hope someone did and it made them smile.

I'm going to quit apologizing for loving my life and simply love it, love it to death. Which, I hope, is what I'll do. Love my life all the way to death....