So, it's 2024, and we know -- we know -- it's going to be a hell of a year, unless several miracles occur.
But frankly, the way it's been stacking up, and the way things have been going for 3 to 4 years (yes, before that too, but it's been weaponized since) this was going to be a bad year either road: the increasing incompetence of the "elites"; the increasing panic of the "elites" as the system they've been relying on fails, the increasing insanity of their "solutions" and simply the culmination of a hundred years of having the "men of system" in charge, and their having way more control over the dissemination of news and ideas than they ever should have had.
Most of us who keep track of such things, and even those who don't have been getting that bad feeling at the back of the head, the feeling of something wicked this way comes, and something is about to pounce out of the dark.
Actually most people who saw the rapidity with which the power-seekers moved to lock us down and the intensity with which they hate every smidgen of human freedom and enjoyment -- truly. Who could have imagined under the excuse of a communicable virus they'd arrest people surfing, alone on the beach? Or the signs on the highway, directed at people in their cars, ALONE, saying "safer at home"? -- are expecting things to go very very bad, very very fast at any minute.
I know I am. And if I tell myself not to think about it, it just means my subconscious worries about it, and it comes out in technicolor nightmares, which are always fun.
I've told you to prepare. I probably didn't need to. I mean it might help someone who wanders in, unannounced, for the first time. But most of you have been on the edge of the seat and following this the same way I've been. Someone who shall remain husband asked me why I'm stocking up food in the basement if I don't intend to eat it. Ah.... I wish I had that unsuspicious a mind.
Anyway, I was talking to a friend and I told her the happiest years of my life, in retrospect were in the late nineties. We weren't swimming in money, but we had got out of the "can't buy a paperback, or I'll starve this week" phase. My stories had started getting accepted, and I was making about enough for a weekend in Denver a year. We had a group of friends and even we all had different politics, it didn't seem to matter. The kids were small, and though the school could be annoying it hadn't yet been fully weaponized against boys. We liked the house we lived in, even though I was rebuilding it from inside out while living there. And our first batch of cats was alive, so we hadn't yet faced the fact they live such short lives and leave us bereft.
And then I said that despite everything we're in what is starting to feel like that sort of halcyon times again. We have a little group of friends locally. I'm starting to write regularly again (having dealt with some long term health issues, which, probably, in retrospect were brought on by living about 20 years too long at high altitude, judging from when the symptoms set in.) The house ain't ideal -- we moved fast, and well, at the time no one was doing close inspections -- but I can deal with most of it, a little bit at a time. And we're not so old yet that I can't deal with that stuff, and we can't take the occasional weekend and go explore a museum or a thrift store, or just find a nice place to walk. The boys aren't both close -- which I'd love, but you know, they have their own lives to live and their own adventures to have, and it might be possible, maybe, but on the other hand, it might not. I have in mind the gentleman who used to comment here and who spent half the year with each son, in different states -- but right now, they can sometimes both travel to our home for holidays, which is a special sweetness and joy.
If it weren't for both of us working too much, and the looming sense of impending doom, we could be very happy right here and now. And I said how happy I was that at the end of the nineties I didn't know 2001 and the complete mess of politics were in our future.
... And then she said, at the same time it occurred to me, that we should cherish the good times anyway.
And you know? She's right. It's not a pollyannish thing. We should still prepare, and we know there's howling winds and snow ahead.
And I know that many of you aren't experiencing halcyon times, or at least not most of the time. I know some of your struggles and I know what the job market looks like -- yeesh -- but--
But even in the middle of slogging through hell, while your galoshes get eaten by pesky duck demons, there are moments of peace and contentment and at times even joy. I know because I've gone through these times myself.
2018 between getting "fired" twice on the same day, and house repairs that let us strapped and much bigger than that troubles that are not (and were not back then) for public consumption, came very close to being annus horriblis.
But I had Greebo, you see. And in self defense, I started a prayer life. I'd start the morning by praying for half an hour to an hour. It was time alone, time to organize my thoughts, time to reach for something bigger than myself. It helped me face the rest of the day.
And I don't remember how it started, but Greebo would come as soon as I was awake and praying, and sit by my knee, very still, not moving, just being warm and being there with me.
In that year of horrors, those hours in the morning, with my cat and praying became distilled sweetness, golden drops of happiness in a world that seemed grey and full of spikes.
Cherishing those brief moments, before the day's slog began, gave me the strength to slog through the meatgrinder, and come through the challenges almost -- practically -- intact.
So... learn to recognize the good times. Even if it's a few minutes with a cup of coffee, in a ray of sunlight, on your back porch. And relish them. Enjoy the heck out of them.
Even if you know they're brief and limited and going to end permanently soon. Perhaps more if you know that.
Don't mourn them ahead of time. Don't anticipate the evil.
Sufficient onto each day the troubles, etc. Find those moments that are golden drops of sweetness and hold onto them, and enjoy them in and of themselves.
If they're things you can make happen more often, at little sacrifice, do so too. Collect as many of them as you can.
And when they're over, tuck them away in memory.
It should be considered part of preparing. We don't live only in the rational side of life.
Stock up on happiness and joy, and carry it with you. Because we all know the road ahead is dark and dreary, but taking warmth and light with us will make us reach further.
And perhaps come through this more or less intact. And ourselves.
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