It Really Is The Little Things (And will I ever learn?)

I worked a split shift last Saturday.

12 to 3. 5 to 8.

Split shifts suck. Everybody hates them.

Finished out the second half of the day and got home by 8:30. Of course when you get home late like that it throws you into a different rhythm. Carol eventually went to bed, I watched an episode of "Bad Blood" late, but I wasn't done. Tooled around the guide and came across "Love, Actually".

Hang in there. There is a point to this. It triggered a bunch of references in my diseased mind.

So I dialed it up and caught my favorite scene. Billy Mack has left a party at Elton John's to go to his chubby manager's apartment. His manager is surprised; Billy Mack tells him he had an epiphany about Christmas. He realized that Christmas is a time to be with the people you love, and it turns out his manager is "the people you love".  He says "It's a terrible, terrible mistakes, chubbs, but you turn out to be the fucking love of my life." His manager gets tears in his eyes.

That is life on a small scale. Real life. Things that really matter.

Got me thinking about the movie "Beautiful Girls." The scene where Tommy "Birdman" Rowland is in the hospital after getting the shit kicked out of him outside a bar. His on again off again girlfriend is visiting him, and he is realizing that his life has gotten strange. And the killer line is when he says "I mean, I am not even close to being the guy I thought I would be." Killer. Absolutely killer.

That is life on a small scale. Real life. Things that really matter.

Got me thinking about the movie "Nobody's Fool". Rub Squeers works for Sully. Rub is a simple man. Uneducated, slow witted, and fiercely loyal to Sully. Sully's son Peter has begun to work with them and Rub is jealous because he feels that Peter is getting all of Sully's attention. Sully visits Rub; they are sitting on concrete steps on a cold, snowy day. Rub explains how he feels. Sully says: "Peter is my son. You are my best friend." Tears flow from Rub's eyes.

Life on a small scale. Real life. Things that matter.

Here's the tie in. I see Carol so differently since she has gone through hell and come out the other side.

One of the amazing things about her is that she gets genuine happiness from the smallest things.

I always cook enough so we have leftovers. About certain meals she will say "That will make an awesome lunch tomorrow." She says it with genuine enthusiasm. She'll come home the next night and tell me how awesome her lunch was. And she means it.

I hate taking my lunch to work. I feel like a little boy. I feel I should be able to afford to buy lunch every day.

She clips coupons. For lots of stuff. And she takes genuine pleasure in telling me we can save $1 on this, $1.50 on that. Seriously happy about it.

I hate coupons. I feel I should be able to afford anything without worrying about saving $1.

I could give you a hundred examples. I believe this is one of the things that keeps her going. That makes her so cool. Her ability to get genuine pleasure out of little things.

Life on a small scale. Real life. Things that really matter.

I have been tuned into this for almost two years now and she blows my mind. Makes me smile. She goes about the business of being happy, I go about the business of being unhappy.

I can learn a lot from Carol. Changes I could make that will make me happier. Little things.

It's like turning around a cruise ship, but I gotta try.

Right?