Living the dream
It's something you say whenever you waltz into another routine day of work, being forced by economic pressures to repeat the same tasks time and again until it's time to go home, a sort of temporary prison we're supposed to make peace with or be grateful for. We stick ourselves into these seemingly endless loops and at some point we have to convince ourselves that it's not so bad and that maybe a part of us actually wants to be there, all in order to make the demoralizing repetition easier to bear. Another day in paradise. Getting our bills paid. Living the dream. Tongue-in-cheek phrases we use to acknowledge the elephant in the room while avoiding getting crushed by it.
But when I look back at the last few years and struggle to remember the last time I held a gun to my head, it's not long before I lock eyes with my dog and realize that I really am living the dream. You know the movie trope of the old guy on his porch staring out into the world with a drowsy-looking dog at his side? That's been my dream life for a long time, and I've been living it this whole time without stopping to truly appreciate how blessed I am.
It's truly a gift to be able to see your best friend every day. For them to be just as happy to see you as you are to see them. For it to not matter where you go or what you do, because you're both together and that's all that really matters. Okay, maybe I don't have a porch, but I do have a balcony with a nice view of the open air and that's good enough. And my dog is a little on the restless side, but she never strays too far away.
Despite the stupid and lazy coworkers you have to work around, the trivial tedium of workplace responsibilities you have to put up with, the cold realization that you're just a cog in the machine, the isolating indifference towards your emotional well-being, or the fact that I'm not making anywhere close to the amount of money someone with two bachelor's degrees should be making; all of that melts away the minute I get to my front door because the most important thing to me is waiting just on the other side.
I still don't know whether she has cancer or not, but for now she's here, she's happy, and she's at peace. I know I don't have her forever, but I have her for now and that's good enough. I haven't taken enough time to stop and enjoy the now, but I think I'll start doing it more often. Life's not perfect, but I've found my happy place and get to wake up to it every day. I can sleep easy knowing I'm right where I want to be in life.
But when I look back at the last few years and struggle to remember the last time I held a gun to my head, it's not long before I lock eyes with my dog and realize that I really am living the dream. You know the movie trope of the old guy on his porch staring out into the world with a drowsy-looking dog at his side? That's been my dream life for a long time, and I've been living it this whole time without stopping to truly appreciate how blessed I am.
It's truly a gift to be able to see your best friend every day. For them to be just as happy to see you as you are to see them. For it to not matter where you go or what you do, because you're both together and that's all that really matters. Okay, maybe I don't have a porch, but I do have a balcony with a nice view of the open air and that's good enough. And my dog is a little on the restless side, but she never strays too far away.
Despite the stupid and lazy coworkers you have to work around, the trivial tedium of workplace responsibilities you have to put up with, the cold realization that you're just a cog in the machine, the isolating indifference towards your emotional well-being, or the fact that I'm not making anywhere close to the amount of money someone with two bachelor's degrees should be making; all of that melts away the minute I get to my front door because the most important thing to me is waiting just on the other side.
I still don't know whether she has cancer or not, but for now she's here, she's happy, and she's at peace. I know I don't have her forever, but I have her for now and that's good enough. I haven't taken enough time to stop and enjoy the now, but I think I'll start doing it more often. Life's not perfect, but I've found my happy place and get to wake up to it every day. I can sleep easy knowing I'm right where I want to be in life.
31-35, M
