I think far too much about what I will be like after.....after I have published a children's book or five, or after I have lost the other 63 lbs I want to lose, or after we are out of debt, or after I've fixed up the house the way I want to. I suppose I think I will be happier, lighter, richer, able to do more and that I will feel more confident about myself and my place in the world. I suppose I will feel like I have reached some, level, some mark, or expectation, some line that I needed to reach-- to feel that I have succeeded. That I will have straight A's in life, a full-ride scholarship to the future, and can hold my head up high.
I often imagine conversations between myself and someone I haven't seen for years. They will ask me how I'm doing, and I will tell them, humbly, that yes, I just published my 6th book, and just had our fourth baby, and yes, my children are brilliant and beautiful (which they truly are already), and my husband is heroically biking the African coastline handing out supplies to refugees, and certainly, my home has been historically restored, and no, I just exercise and watch what I eat, but yes, thank you, I do weigh as much as I did in high school when you saw me last, or maybe just a few pounds less. I grow all my own food, so it's pretty easy to stay healthy, you know how it is.
Yes, that sounds pretty good, but it doesn't mean I'd be any happier then than I am now. It doesn't mean that I'd feel or be any more loved. It doesn't mean that I'd have any more friends. It doesn't mean that I'd even like myself! I have the same capacity for joy today that I would have in the "after" conversation. And that capacity is really quite limitless. If I can love unconditionally, I can feel unconditional joy.
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