Resolution #1: An Easy Life
There’s always something. You know those people? The ones who… just seem to be attractants for bad luck. Things always happen. Some self-caused, some not, but the whole package deal makes you look and shake your head and wonder what they’re doing to attract that kind of life.
I was born one of them, but we’ll just skip over the childhood drama, of which there was a lot, and the seven or eight years of illness in my twenties, which is pretty much me just sitting in bed.
I remember one good friend from high school, getting really perturbed and throwing up her hands in the air and saying, “You can never just go somewhere, can you? Something always happens! Every time we go somewhere, something happens!”
Glenn was the same way when we first met. He liked to wait for when “all our ducks are in a row.”
Let’s put it this way: after living with me for eight years, he has stopped using that phrase, and has not mentioned even attempting to get all our ducks in a row.
My point is, I’m sick of being one of those people. I want an easy life. I want a nice, predictable life. I want order. I want security. I want a life like my best friend, who has a daughter and a husband and a family and a secure job and income and house and she’s most oftentimes happy. She’s blessed, sure, and she’s had hardship, for sure, but… her life is definitely not there’s always something.
Maybe this might seem to contradict with the desire to upgrade my RV so we can live on the road, but even that “adventure” can be done in an easy, relaxed, almost-predictable way. You know?
When I was little, for some odd reason, I became convinced that the first half of my life would be hell, and the second half would be easy-peasy and wonderful.
I thought this would happen when I was thirty. And then when I was thirty-five.
I think I made the first steps when I was thirty-five, but now I’m thirty-six. And while there’s not always something, there’s still often something. It’s clear that somehow, I have no idea how, I’m going to have to force the issue. I am tired of waiting.
A good portion of these things that happen have not been my fault, but plenty of what has happened to me has been my fault. I try to find a way it’s my fault, at least, because that gives me the power to change things.
So anyway, that’s my number one goal for the year. I want an easy life. I have no idea how to get it, but that’s my goal.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
How do you make your life so that there’s not always something? Do you know people where there’s always something? Have you been one? How did you… stop it? What’s your number one “idea” goal for this year?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
The obvious answer is “Manifest what you want,” but maybe the even more obvious one is that once you learn to embrace the things that happen, life will get easier.
I don’t know. I’m in a serious transitional period myself. Lots of changes and healing lie ahead for me. Scary, yet comforting.
Totally, Susan. I think I’ve laid the foundation, last year. Now I need to build the house, and the home will come!
You just have to be proactive. Instead of thinking it, do it, no matter how small or big. It’ll be great!
Happy New Year, Natasha!
Let’s hope so!
Happy New Year, Janna!
Geeze, Natasha, you’re making me think, as well as relate. My mother, may she rest in peace, lived a “glass half-empty” mentality. I can still hear her say, “Everything always happens to us,” whenever something bad or tragic happened. It has taken me years to shake off the the fall-out from her ever present negativity.
Learning to change my way of thinking helped, although hard to master. I try to push away negative thoughts and the urge to say, “Everything always happens to me.” My goal for this year (which I’m going to blog about) is to stay away from negative/whiny people. You know the type. They complain and never have anything positive to say. I have a hard time dealing with that sort of mentality, as well as trying to stave off the stress their chronic whining produces.
Here’s to a non-whiny New Year!
My husband is really complainy, lately. It’s really getting on my nerves. I can understand him complaining about living in Ohio, because he hated it, but yesterday he declared that he hated Arizona because of the wind.
And there was just a BREEZE. It wasn’t even nudging the camper. I’m like, there’s wind everywhere!!!
He’s got to stop that.
But gosh, I miss him. He just left today for four months of working.
No answers here. I’m trying to make sense of your own life. You have a lot of people who love and admire you. Write that bestseller! That’s my advice. And then you can tell the rest of us how to do it. lol
LOL, Edie, you are so amazing at being a cheerleader! If I can ever be as good as you at being you, I’ll die feeling a success.
I can empathize. I too have had one of those lives. In my case I think much of my malaise stems from being much too passive and not protecting my time and myself.
Me too, Anon. Especially the passive part. I was just reading that stress activates something in the brain, so a rough life actually makes you more and more passive, over time.
Isn’t that annoying? That sounds supremely unfair. I’m trying to battle it.
*hugs*
Happy New Year, Natasha!! I will cross my fingers and toes and wish for an easy peasy year for you.
I think you’d love an updated camper on the road. You could keep having adventures and writing, but maybe have a little more of the old creature comforts. Or maybe I’m projecting my own need for creature comforts onto you. Hmmmm…
LOL, Robin! Oh no, I will take all the creature comforts in the world.
Although, we might have different views of what those creature comforts are, LOL. (Shoes and lotions, no. Tons of books on my Kindle and comfy bed, yes. 
)
I think that people who seem like things are going well don’t always feel like it is. I mean, it sounds like there’s a lot more of “there’s always something” for you, especially with the being sick and Glenn being gone for so long at a stretch.
I’ve been “accused” of being one of those people with an easy life, but I’ve had and still do have my own blocks. I just hide them easier and they are different sorts of issues. I’m sure your friend you were referring to has many as well. We all do, but yes, some more than others.
Then again, have you ever heard of an artistic person with a super cushy life? That sort of stuff doesn’t lead for any material.
I just know that you will channel everything and create an amazing best seller! 
Also, think of how all those things have molded you into who you are with the ability to live on the road in an RV, which I think is *super* cool 
Lauren, I hear you. I don’t think my friend has had an easy life, not at all, just… well, she’s very blessed now. She just has a life I’d love to have, now, mostly. With my own personal variations, of course, LOL.
I wouldn’t at all compare, though. It’s like pain. The worst pain someone has ever felt is the worst pain someone has ever felt, and thus equal, even if a scientist were able to declare one a “2.5″ pain and one a “9.3″ pain.
It’s the human condition to struggle, I think.
And I think your life is super cool, Lauren!
Natasha, I think if you’re questioning your life this way, you’re well on the road to figuring it out. And that’s probably as cushy as it gets! I’m sending you wishes for a happy, healthy, and drama-free 2010. xo p.s. When I get to the point of buying a kindle, I will consult with you first!
Awww, thank you, Barrie! And the Kindle rocks. The only “possession” I’ve ever loved, and I hate things!
“so a rough life actually makes you more and more passive, over time.”
I think that’s true to a point. Hardship can make a person more timid, because one becomes more acutely aware of unpleasant consequences.
Alas, my whole adult life has been one disaster after another. Nothing has ever been easy and I am basically an unambitious person who would prefer to just read books and write rather than struggle for success let alone struggle to just survive. At my age I can see it is never going to be “easier.” Now I’m aiming for “easier.”
But hoping for an “easy” life can be a snare. I know a couple who set that as a goal — having all the ducks in a row — but then, when the son was off to college, suddenly an elderly relative became infirm and had to come to live with them so they still had a family member to be responsible for. Then a change of management made the husband’s job insecure and less pleasant. And they feel aggrieved. Yet, he has a job, they own their home. They are far better off than most, but the perfectly easy life they envision eludes them. I don’t think you can make ducks stay in a row unless they’re dead.