What Would It Be Like?

So this is going to seem like a downer of a post, which is uncharacteristic of me, but it’s kind of where I’m at today, so I’m going to flow with the muse while I’ve got it.

My back was just beginning to feel better when I got hit by the tree pollen in the middle of the night. I woke up sneezing (which is an odd experience in and of itself), and my allergies were so bad this morning that I could feel my nose literally dripping while I stood at the pharmacy counter at 7:55 a.m. waiting for the cashier to ring up some allergy medicine and a box of Kleenex. Oh, the irony.

All day long, each time I sneezed, I would feel twinges through my lower back. Then Ryan called me and he was having a bad day, and someone asked me if I wanted to order lunch with them and I said no because we don’t have the money, and well, around 10:30, I just shut my office door and decided to have myself a good healthy cry.

Why does it seem to be harder for us than for other people?

Why can’t we seem to get ahead?

Why do we work our butts off just to come out even every month?

What do we have to do to get a job whose work/pay-off ratio comes out a little more proportionately (or favorably)? 

How do people have money for vacations?

What would it be like to have a house that doesn’t need so many repairs?

What would it be like to have money to do the home repairs we need?

What would it be like to have money to do the car repairs we need?

What would it be like to get paid a sum of money for editing and actually be able to use it for the things we want to use it for, instead of seeing it slip through our fingers for bills and necessities that just so happen to come up that very week?

What would it be like to have amazing metabolism and be able to eat like a normal person and not gain weight?

What would it be like to have more than one child?

Why is parenting one child all we can seem to manage?

What would it be like to decide to have another baby and then just… have it? Wow, that’s a novel idea.

It’s not that I’m ungrateful….In all sincerity, I know how to put things in perspective and how to ask: What would it be like to be hit with an earthquake and tsunami and lose all your possessions and your family in a matter of minutes?

I get that. I know things aren’t really that bad, and I know they could be so much worse. But sometimes when I look around at other people, I just think, “Wow, how are you doing that?” Sometimes success just looks so easy from the outside.

I’m not jealous or even unhappy at others’ fortune. I’m not that kind of person at all. I just want to know how I can get in on it, too. :-)

I’ll be fine. We’ll be dandy. Everything is really ok. Tomorrow my pity party will be over, and I will look at the world through fresh eyes… I will breathe the world through a pollenless nose.

I’m just curious, that’s all.