I am in a sun room in beautiful British Columbia, feeling sun-kissed and wrapped in mountains. In the past three days I have eaten fish and chips beside the pier in White Rock, dipped my toes into the ocean (wearing a hoodie and coat), and walked the entire Stanley Park sea wall surrounded by sailboats, rocks, trees, birds, and happy people.
I've also spent eight hours in interviews, one hour wandering in the rain looking for a quiet restaurant, two nights at a hotel they forgot to clean, and one sunny afternoon stuck on a highway replete with lane closures and turnoffs you can't see until you've passed them.
The "should haves" keep popping into my head: we should have left earlier to avoid traffic, we should have taken the detour, we should have walked to that other beach, looked at that map, stayed at that hotel.
I wish I could have left myself at home and come without me.
I'm supposed to be relaxing. The school doesn't have my number, my kids don't need me, and my laundry piles and litter box are three provinces away. But it seems I've spent so much of my life in "to do" mode that I don't know how to relax. So many people want me to enjoy myself on this trip that I feel like I have to account for every minute well spent. Pressure.When I'm having a hard day, thinking about how God can turn it into a story fires me up with courage to keep going or to do the next hard thing. I think about not just my work, but my life as being a book for others to read. It keeps me accountable and charges every little faithful decision with eternal significance.
But sometimes, like now, thinking about my life as a story makes it harder to live in the moment. I wonder if I should stop even writing about it, because it can just reinforce the idea that I'm part of one lifelong performance evaluation.
You can't evaluate happiness. The minute you ask yourself, "Am I as happy as I could possibly be sitting here in the sun under the mountains, or would someone else feel happier than I do right now if they were here?" all your happiness flies out the sun room window.
Enough with the "shoulds," already. Maybe I'll just make some of my happy moments my little secret, so that you, and I, don't have to evaluate or rethink them.In traffic and in the sunshine, I'm stuck with myself, so we may as well make the best of it. Patience. Construction always means "expect delays." Especially in B.C.
