Overrated.
This winter—our first here in Rochester—I fell into a
depression that was initially hard for me to recognize because I’d never before
experienced depression that didn’t seem to have a direct cause, such as my
father’s death. I therefore looked for what I thought I might be missing. Initially
I thought I missed Chicago. I thought I missed being in a walkable
neighborhood. I thought I missed my sisters, my brothers, my mom, my dad, and
even friends I never made. But as soon as the first daffodil bloomed outside my
back door and I had to squint when I stepped into the yard, I knew I had simply
missed the sun.
Before spring finally showed up, my routine included too
much HGTV and History Channel. It included finding reasons to be angry at Ron
so I could unleash some of the blackness I was feeling. It included wondering
why he ever married me in the first place, and wondering how we were going to
survive as a couple after the kids all leave home, and wondering what I have to
offer as a mother now that I’m no longer changing diapers or kissing scrapes or
finding ways to entertain children that have figured out finally how to
entertain themselves. But more than anything, it included me trying to figure out
how to find happiness again.
And then I realized I don’t need to find it. It’s okay not
to have it.
I’m not cynical or a defeatist. I’m a sufficer, Ron would
say. I’m comfortable without an extra pillow. I’ll order the same thing every
time I go to a restaurant. I don’t need to maximize every moment of my life,
and I forgot this over the last several months of gray.
Until I came across a couple of scriptures: Philippians
4:11-12.
Not that I speak in respect of
want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I
know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all
things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to
suffer need.
As an editor, I cringe at the use of the passive voice. So
in these verses, I was drawn (passive voice) to “I am instructed.” Who is instructing
Paul? Is it God? I thought so at first, but I couldn’t understand why God would
instruct Paul to be full and hungry, to abound and to suffer need. But it’s not
God. It’s Paul’s own doing. It’s his notice of the world, his partaking of it,
that is instructing him. He sees the world offers him options in his decision
to be content. Or not. He can be abased AND he can abound. Or he can be abased
OR he can abound. He can choose whether to be full OR to be hungry. He can
choose to abound OR to want. In saying he has learned to be content, he is
actually saying he has chosen to be
content.
Not happy: content.
I think we place too much emphasis on happiness—on our
pursuit of something that may always be just out of reach.
In February, our family went to St. John. On our last full
day there, we hiked for about an hour or so to reach the petroglyphs. When the
Taino Indians inhabited the island, this spot was sacred to them because of the
waterfall they found there, and the reflecting pool at its base. Of course, we,
visiting in 2013, ended up being underwhelmed. The waterfall was dry, and even
had it not been, there was nothing grand about it. The pool was stagnant, dark,
and little more than a gathering place for bugs. The petroglyphs were likewise
unimpressive: only a few scattered scrapings into the stone, more or less
unrecognizable and certainly lacking all meaning for us.
Still, there was something remarkable if not amazing to me
about the clearing, because it reminded me of how accustomed we’ve become to not being amazed. We stand in line for
hours for a five-minute ride on a roller coaster, because rolling down a hill
isn’t fun enough anymore. We jump out of planes to freefall for 7,000 feet
before pulling the parachute cord, because jumping off a swing no longer
tickles our stomachs. We go to the Virgin Islands for a week because our gloomy
backyard is making us angry at our husband and making us yell at our kids and
making us forget to take notice of the cardinals and the way the snow weighs
down the branches and the way the ice creates patterns out of itself on the
windows. We’re looking for more, because we want
to be amazed and yet can’t remember how.
But if we could just find contentment . . . If we could know
what hunger is and yet choose to be full . . . If we could know need and yet
choose to see how much we already have . . . If I could live through the cloudy days and choose to focus on the
warmth of my house, my home, my family . . .
Then I don’t need to be amazed. I don’t need year-round
sunshine. And I don’t need happiness or joy or elation when I can choose to be
content. I don’t need a feast, when, as the saying goes, enough is a feast. And I have enough. I have
plenty.
