The Lifting Fog

This week has been very pleasant so far. I can't believe how carefree and generally content I've been feeling the past few days. After a tough summer, I think things are finally starting to clear up. Without getting into unnecessary detail (because the 1-3 of you who read this blog sometimes already know) it boils down to: the house purchase, a death in the family, Leigh's illnesses, my health scare, getting a new puppy, moving, having a subletter, work, and preparing to change jobs (sort of). It was a lot to deal with. Even after the house business was settled and Leigh's health was looking better and my test results were promising, I was still feeling a bit drab. Nothing was making me really happy. Maybe I just felt like a little kid whose summer had been stolen from her.

Well, the house is really starting to look good. We've finished painting the interior and our pictures are on the walls. Leigh and I both feel well every day. We are enjoying our jobs and our friends. We are happy when we get home from work to find our kitty and puppy waiting for us. In the near future we have such joys awaiting us as a Labor Day cabin and hiking trip, early winter camping on the Kenai Penninsula, and friends and family coming to visit. All of these little joys together have pushed away the feeling of funk leaving me a generally contented person. We love living here, we love our house and our pets and we love each other. These things indicate that we are honestly very happy.

When people think of happiness, especially in American culture, maybe we think that incredible, intense joy and excitement is required to consider oneself happy. No one can feel joy all the time and those who do are probably in denial or blind to the world's problems. That doesn't mean we should stick our heads in the sand to avoid the problems or take pride in feeling raw pain and suffering to acknowledge those problems all the time. Instead, I'm finding that I am most aware of my happiness when I am calm and generally optimistic, but still aware when things aren't going well. The difference is that most of the time I will feel that things are going very well, but when I experience a setback it's less devastating. I can deal with the setbacks reasonably, work through them and then acknowledge when that time has passed.

This sense of calm has caused some slight changes in Leigh's and my general outlooks. Until we moved to Anchorage, and until fairly recently, we were homebodies. We rarely made dates with friends and almost never invited people over. Whether this was laziness or shyness, I don't know, but it was uncommon for us to socialize much outside of our school/work acquaintances. Now it's become commonplace to have friends over for coffee or dinner or just to stop by the see the progress on the house. We've also met up with friends at restaurants around town or for hikes. Now we're making plans to have more friends over for dinner and to go on a dual camping trip with another couple and their puppy, who happens to also be Cannelle's best friend. I think we're finally settling into a life somewhere, a life that we love and want to share with others.

Yesterday evening we hosted a simple dinner for a couple we are friends with while our puppies played in the yard. It was fun to spend the evening chatting and unwinding. About an hour after they left, Cannelle was passed out on my lap. It was a great way to spend the evening. Today after work I have a women lawyer's social gathering and tomorrow Leigh and I are going bicycle shopping! This weekend we've planned to bike a trail in the Mat-Su valley that ends at a glacier. We'll also have to take Cannelle on a hike to test out her new no-pulling harness. As long as the weather holds out, I expect the next few days to be great! Then, next weekend, we're going on a mini vacation to Hope, AK. Fun!