The Good Life

I just had one of those moments when I realized that although my life isn’t perfect, it’s good. We are making friends – evidenced by the fact that I ran into a friend at the local Walmart and she let me bring her sweet little girl home with me to hang out with Kullen for the afternoon. It was just a piece of “real” – the being somewhere and running into somebody, stopping for a minute in the middle of the hustle bustle of your shopping to talk a minute. In the last year I have been merely the spectator in those kinds of moments that seemed to have been reserved for other people.

Just a little while ago, the kids were playing some sort of game down the 30 foot hallway that spans the length of our house using my broom and a wadded up sheet of paper as a sort of puck/ball. (Somebody tell me how the toy companies survive?) They were playing the “Lilo and Stitch” soundtrack thick with Elvis music and giggling. As I passed, Kullen and I had a tug-of-war with the broom. I wondered how many moms allowed such fun to go on in their homes without interfering. Maybe a lot of them – I just know I wasn’t allowed to play like that as a kid.

I have been baking pizza crusts all day in anticipation of a house full of teenagers for a "make your own pizza" and movie night. The smell of dessert pizza is wafting through the house, but it is not nearly as sweet as the thought of having a house full of friends, not to mention a new litter of kittens. It makes my heart soar.

I cut myself a piece of Kullen’s birthday cake, and went out and sat on the porch swing listening to the music of laughter inside, throwing my legs all the way out and in like I did as a little girl trying to swing my way to the moon. I realized how very happy my life is becoming, in spite of a lot of sadness.