worn out contentment

"Sorrow is nothing more than worn out joy."


- Will Oldham, Old Joy


Thursday and Friday last week turned out to be nearly 12-hour workdays. I'd reached a level of fatigue I haven't experienced in a long while. My friend once told me, shortly after the birth of his daughter, how he'd never known such a level of exhaustion. But it was a happy sort of tired, since there was the joy and fascination surrounding the presence of this little human who was new to the world and had half his DNA. I imagined he was feeling that giddy type of delirium that occurs when you haven't slept for days but have good reason to be happy... you're with friends, someone tells a joke or just says something stupid, and you start laughing and cannot stop yourself from cracking your ass up into a delightfully silly fit of hysteria (times 17 probably, if you add the birth of your first child).


I can't say I'm feeling any transcendental kind of joy, but I will say that it feels good sometimes to work yourself to the point of utter exhaustion. Even if you feel like you've been run over by a truck. Even if the workday has you running around like crazy, rushing to take care of all the people who have flooded your clinic, worrying that you're making them wait too long. Even if upon your return home, you feel a bit crumpled and want nothing more than to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling (or alternatively, chill on the couch with three key items: a glass of wine, a bar of dark chocolate, and a kitty curled up in the crook of your arm). It feels good to get all listless because you spent the day doing something. Especially if that something is useful and valuable.


On the way to work Friday morning, still feeling the effects of the long day before, and not yet knowing the extent of the day to come, I had a tiny yet glorious revelation that started to perk me up out of my morning fog: I like my life. Where I'm at, what I'm doing, who I'm spending my time with. And it sure didn't hurt that minutes later, as I passed downtown Seattle and came upon that telling first curve on I-5 which reveals whether or not I'll get to stare at Mount Rainier or a blanket of cloud cover on that morning's commute, my eyes feasted upon not only a clear sky with the mountain in plain view, but a remarkable sunrise over the Cascades, gray and yellow with thick cloudy tinges of blue and purple, which gave me a mysterious burst of energy and made me grin, jaw dropping at the beauty before me, at how wonderful it feels to live in the midst of such natural splendor. I feel so grateful to have happened upon this corner of the country, and of all the places I could have lived, to have picked a place where morning after morning the sunrises make me smile in disbelief and shriek aloud and where the job rewards me with sighs of relief from people who have been helped out of their painful ruts and where the hard work makes me aware of my body and my strength and my limits, and challenges me every day.

Yes, indeed, I really like my life.