It’s funny the things that I take enjoyment in my life from. Not funny ha-ha, though that’s sometimes true as well; funny, like it’s odd that I would like something.
For instance, today I’m changing the shocks on my truck. With the jacking the car up and taking the wheels off and wrestling with bolts and ruining my clothes with grime and grease it seems, from all outward appearances, that this would universally be labeled as a pain in the ass.
And, make no mistake, it is. It’s a simple fix, and I’ve done it a half-a-dozen times before, and I’ll probably swear more than a usually do, be exhausted by the end of it from lifting and pulling on things, and maybe even get a headache from sitting out in the sun and not drinking any water; but, it somehow makes me happy as well. Happy may not be the right word for it…I’m not going to smile and pump my fists into the air when I’m done. Throughout the process I’ll be thinking of all the other things that I need to do; in many cases the things I’d rather do. But it leaves me feeling content for some reason. One less thing.
Things seems to break on me in waves…and I don’t mean that as a pun. Things around me will be fine for months, and then all pile on at once. Recently it’s been electronics: external harrdrive crashing, and then it’s back-up, and then my laptop (THIS laptop, in fact). So fast and so quickly that I “had” to go get a netbook just to pay my bills on time. (yes, I have access to plenty of other computers at work and my surrounding environs, but I needed to get a netbook, you see. For like emergencies or something? It’s best not to think about it too deeply).
Then there were the car accidents a few years back. Being rear-ended 4 times in 3 months, all of them while just sitting quietly at a stop-light.
And there was a fire.
And lately, it seems like my expensive furniture is proving that you don’t always get what you pay for.
I would think that these cyclic rashes of habitat failures would get to me; and, maybe in unseen or unnoticed ways they do. Upfront and in my head, though, they are opportunities for me to be the creator of my own contentment. I like fixing things, I like making things better and improving on what was once ruined.
That it might be better if nothing ever went wrong in the first place doesn’t seem to occur to me. Time to get dirty and frustrated.