Tag: NC

Happiness as an orientation

This past weekend, I made a whirlwind trip to the mountains of North Carolina to see some friends who now live in Northern Ireland for the most part, but were back in the States to visit. Other mountain friends came by, and we ate some meals together and told stories and shared what was resonating for us and what scared us and what we hoped for. 

That it was the one year anniversary of Hurricane Helene, the terrible storm that had decimated the economy and life of the area we were in was on everyone’s mind. That it was overcast and rainy made that worse, of course. 

I love these people – most of them were people I knew when I lived in North Carolina, and others I have met on return visits since I have moved, and all of them matter to me. The hardest part about leaving North Carolina was leaving all the people I love behind. Most of these people I met while doing emotionally hard work, and that causes bonds that are not easily broken. 

As someone who blogs and writes and shares things on social media, there is a degree of asymmetrical knowledge when I see people I haven’t seen in a while – while they may not know the whole story, they know the broad beats of my life – the kitten rescue, the trip to the mountains, Renee’s health. 

I generally don’t know anything about what’s going on in their life, so I generally end up asking the most questions. 

But then I got asked the one that stumped me.

“Are you happy?”

I paused, thinking about that question. Am I happy?

“Do you mean right now, with you guys?” I ask. 

“No, in general. Since you’ve moved. In Mississippi – are you happy?”

A curse of neurodivergence is the tendency to take people seriously. When folk ask me how I’m doing, I assume they want to know how I’m doing. So I gave it some thought. 

I live with depression, and while it’s managed, it’s always there. I have periodic bouts of what I would call happiness, but I don’t think I have ever experienced it as a perpetual state, as an orientation. 

So I told her that I don’t think I have ever been happy in the way she means it, but that I am content. It’s much harder in Mississippi than it was in North Carolina on almost every metric except financially. I make more money here, and housing is cheaper here, but I am 7 years in and still don’t have the sort of deep community I had in North Carolina. 

I’m in the biggest city in the state, do very public work, and yet still feel a sort of perpetual loneliness here that I did not experience there. Of course, having two and a half years of your life taken by a global pandemic did nothing to help.

But I like my life. I like that I get to write a lot more than I ever have. I like that I have a house filled with cats and love, a yard with raucous flowers everywhere, and that my wife and I can afford to live in a house that is safe and fits our lifestyle. We have a few friends we are close to, and I get to do work that matters. 

Is that happiness? I’m not sure. But it’s definitely contentment. 

The never ending project

The last house we lived in was what is politely called a “fixer-upper”. Before we could move into it, we had to rip out all the carpet, put in new floors, renovate the kitchen and get all new (or at least, new to us) appliances.

But that was just the starting point.

It had been a low-income rental for more than a decade, and while the house itself was structurally sound, no one had loved it in a very, very long time. The yard was dismal. Hard, compacted soil, with desire paths across the yard where the neighbors would shortcut through it. A backyard that was filled with privet and briars and fallen trees.

Then there was the leaky roof, the sunken front porch, the rotten bathroom floor… It required a lot of vision to see what could be.

We lived in that house for five years. I ripped out the bathroom floor and tiled it. Renovated the studio apartment in the basement and rented it out. Put fencing and flower beds in the front yard. Built a porch across the front of the house. Built a chicken coop in the backyard. Put in a rose hedge along the road. Ripped out the privet and cleaned up the backyard. Pulled the aluminum siding off the front of the house, discovering shiplap siding in perfect condition underneath, which we painted. Replaced the leaky roof with a metal one. And lots of other, smaller things I am forgetting.

And along the way we hosted friends, had celebrations, had a niece live with us for 6 months or so, and my wife had a heart transplant. That house treated us very well. We loved it, and it kept us safe. And when we had to leave it, we were fortunate enough to sell it to a friend, who would love it too.

I have to confess: I didn’t have any vision. I just knew that this is what we could afford, and that if we loved the house and took care of it, it would take care of us. This is sort of my way of working – I don’t invest heavily in long-term plans. I usually just have a long-term broadly defined goal – in this case, a happy, safe, home that would serve as a sanctuary for us. And then, after setting that goal, I ask myself, what can I do now to move me toward it?

These days, we are in a different house, in a different state. This house was more or less move in ready when we bought it, barring some minor updates in the kitchen and a lot of painting. But this house has a ½ acre of yard, and it was a rental before we bought it. Again – structurally sound, but unloved for a long time.

And again, I don’t have a grand vision. I just want it to be welcoming. To be safe, and to keep us safe. To be a place of rest, of sanctuary, for both us and the birds and the pollinators and the other wildlife that share this place with us. So the question isn’t, “What is the next thing to do on this long list” but, “What can I do, in this moment, to move me closer to that vision?”

I find that empowering in many ways. The first is that I don’t always have $3,000 to build the workshop I needed in the backyard, but maybe I do have the $20 to buy a rosebush or native vine. Maybe it’s been raining for weeks, like it does in the spring here, and so I can’t till the new flower bed, but I can paint the hallway. And living in a place changes how you interact with it, which means that your first year in a house, you don’t know enough about the place to make a list of what you want to change about it.

It also helps me avoid the temptation to believe the false idea that I will only be happy when it’s finished. After all, if it has to be finished for me to be happy – well, that could take years. And science tells us that the anticipation of a trip brings more satisfaction than does the actual trip itself.

So, I don’t have a set date for completion. Instead, I choose to see my house and yard as works in progress, a never ending project, and thus, a never ending source of joy.