Happiness

How about a nice reflective post. I haven't done one of those in a while and as things are wrapping up here it seems appropriate.

I spent the weekend with Colin and my family. I was exceptionally happy on Sunday. We sat in the spa at the hotel in Jinshan, ate a leisurly breakfast, relaxed and watched Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and then returned to Taipei and had a fabulous Thai lunch. After parting with my parents Coin and I tried unsuccessfully but interestingly to return a power cord I'd bought for my computer (we ended up in a strangly arty but smokey apartment with hymalayan cats) and then we went to buy get me a train ticket. I somehow lost the train ticket on the way to the train and instead of letting me break down in tears for losing something yet again, Colin suggested I get a later train and we go have coffee. So nothing big and fabulous, but I was incredibly happy.

Which makes me wonder, Have I not been happy all this time? I find myself thinking about the year and coming up with things I really like, my co-workers, the funny things my kids say, how many people say hi to me in the morning while I'm running, the beautiful scenary around my home, Taiwan's trains and mantou. Despite these things I seem to complain more than I appriciate. I can't stand the number of beeps in this country, I'm tired of miscommunication and people assuming I don't know basic things because I'm a foreigner, massive amounts of oil in my lunch, I could go on but I won't. When my housemates and I made up top ten lists they kept coming out negative. Maybe that's because it's funnier or more interesting or maybe it's because I am somehow in a hole that I fell into and didn't recognize I was in. I must have come off to my Dad as not liking my time here because he came to the conclusion that I was never planning on living in Asia again and he seemed to think I was really glad for things to be over. Not so, I don't think.

Maybe it's because my powers of retrospection fail to acknowledge anything but my most happy moments and I am thus stuck in a perpetual old Reed mindstate where everything was better before. Or maybe I simply don't want to accept that life is happy much less than all of the time.

But really, I think I am not part of a community in the way that makes me really happy. Then again, it took me almost 3 years to feel that way at Reed. Hum, maybe I should stay put, stop uprooting these roots of mine that don't seem to take very quickly.

I also think I am very adaptable. That can be thought of as a positive aspect and infact I fear I might sound like I'm bragging, but something I think is lost in being particurally adaptable. To adapt, you must accept things, sometimes simply at face value. I've learned to to say "Hum, well that's strange, carry on" or "I don't understand what that's all about. Oh well." It's a survival technique to only focus on the most important things or the most interesting, but I've lost a lot of wonderment and enchantment because of it. Probably because I saw too many crazy things at Reed.

So that where all of my thoughts have been. Maybe I'm anticipating having too much time this summer and I've gotten a head start on thinking too much.