Comfort and Joy

When I sent Nate (author of one previous guest post and a few other blogs) the Frompt instructions, he replied with an email the next day saying, “Not to be a blog hog, but…”

The resultant conversation led to an agreement that he would write this guest post as a two-parter, with his secondary Frompt being “comfort.”

As in:  COMFORT and JOY.

Enjoy!

😀

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CHANGING COMFORT

I’m trying to figure out when I am most comfortable and the only consistent thought is that feeling when you are just waking up and your feet are wrapped up in the blankets.  Well I don’t know if you know that feeling, but that moment is when I am feeling most comfortable.

That is also a moment that I cannot create.  That moment just has to happen.

Sitting at home surrounded by my family and all of our stuff is comfortable, but even sitting here or there doing something with them I frequently lose that feeling of comfort.

Why?

I have, or had for the longest time, never stayed in one place for any length of time and moves were sometimes sudden and out of the blue.  I learned NOT to be comfortable because comfort that most people learn by being in one place surrounded by the familiar was routinely taken away from me. Even when I was in a place for a length of time I never allowed myself to become comfortable with the place or the people.  At any moment they could be taken from me.  If I was not comfortable with them then I lost nothing.

Even now, I know that this will all go away and be replaced with a new place and new people.

That, change, is when I feel most comfortable.  Change is when I feel at home. Change is when I am in my element.  When everyone else is freaking out, I feel comfortable.

But every now and again, my feet wrapped in blankets reminds me that I could be comfortable in other ways.

Maybe one day.

* * * * *

FINDING JOY

I thought I had something pithy or wise to say about the subject that Mrs. Fever gave me, Joy, but to be honest with you especially in relation to the holidays joy is not on my list.  At least that is until we got kids. Prior to having kids the holidays, other than Thanksgiving, were days that I did not look forward to and wanted nothing to do with.

I won’t bore you to death with my “sob” story, just understand joy was not something I associated with the holidays.  Then I we had one kid and then the other.  Then I got some gray hairs, but I discovered through them (the kids not the gray hairs), joy.

I look forward to the holiday season because they believe in all of the mythos and are not seduced or suckered by the crass consumerism that is the “holiday season” now.  They look forward to putting up the lights and tree.  They get excited when their personalized stockings go up on the wall.  They give us…oops, they make lists for Santa. Each Christmas Eve before they go to bed, they write a letter to Santa thanking him.  Next to the letter is a plate of cookies that Barb baked and a glass of milk.

The first thing they do each Christmas morning after waking us up way too early, is to check the plate of cookies and milk.  Guess what the plate is empty and the milk gone.  There is even a nice thank you note from Santa for the cookies.  That is joy for me, watching them.

Sure the gifts get torn into.  Sure there is plenty of play time.  I know that there is a mess to clean up, but you know what, I don’t care.  I am feeling joyous watching them be kids in a world that seems determined to age everyone.