It's Valentine's Day, which around our homestead is really no big deal. We bought tickets to a romantic dinner at the winery we belong to, which will take place this weekend, but since today is Thursday it's pretty much going to be a normal kind of day. Laundry. Sweeping. Attempting to gently stretch the 40 or so muscles I imposed on yesterday while I was setting up a drip system in our yard.
I was thinking about this the other day in terms of life. So often when we are in the group that could be qualified as a "have," we don't think much about it. It's a need that's met and that's all there is to it. Valentine's became a not-so-big deal once I was married. When I was single, especially if I was in a new relationship or, worse, NOT in a relationship, Valentine's Day, or the lack of a person to celebrate it with, was huge. Epic. Tragic.
It illustrates what I think is a basic component of human nature: we all focus, to some extent, on what we do not have. And the more we do it, the more unhappy we are guaranteed to make ourselves.
When I was in my early 20's, I had a small cosmetic procedure to fix what I can only call a genetic issue with my eyes, specifically, pouchy-looking bags of fat under them. Nearly every woman on my mother's side of the family had this fixed, and for good reason. It was unattractive, and eventually would have caused a medical problem, as all that fat tended to pull your eyelids down, with time and gravity figured in.
But here's the thing: Before I got it done, I obsessed with my fatty under-eye bags every time I looked in the mirror, every time I saw an advertisement for eye make-up in a magazine, or every time I passed a woman who had nice eyes. I'm ashamed to admit it, but my eye bags were pretty much the center of my universe. I shudder to think how much precious brain power was used for thinking about this pretty minor issue.
I had the procedure done, and basically never thought of my eyes again. All that brain-time and energy, freed up! Perhaps it was because I finally felt "average" or "normal." So my obsession with eyes disappeared. And it was only then that I lived as most other people did, where they looked in the mirror and saw their eyes as just another part of their face.
When you are blessed to have certain needs and wants met, the odds are you don't think much about them. Food, shelter and health are the big ones, of course, but on smaller issues it rings just as true, too. The popular kids in high school never saw themselves as kings and queens, you only saw that if you were looking in, from outside that circle. Models and actors we regular folks consider gorgeous fully believe they have serious flaws that make them less attractive than their other famous peers. The rich see themselves as plain-old-average people, and often see themselves as that way because they compare themselves to people even richer than they are.
Homesteaders have a little of this going on. The urban homesteader often thinks their life would be better if they just had more space to grow things and raise food. The rural types envy the urban types their ability to visit the grocery store without having to drive 20 miles to do it. Western homesteads envy the east for their gushing water -- the thousands of rivers, springs and plentiful aquifers just 30 feet below the ground. The east envies the west their long growing season and the ability to have fresh salads in January.
The Valentine wish I have for everyone today is that, just for a minute, they can see themselves, see their spouse, or see their life in the way someone who doesn't have that life would see it....to understand that almost everyone in our culture has a life that would be enviable to someone.
May we all enjoy and truly appreciate those blessings we so often take for granted -- lack of eye bags included.
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