Sunday, March 25, 2012

Synthetic Happiness, Revisited


Image courtesy of Halifornia.

Ever since Laura and I talked at length about it on Wednesday, I've been thinking about Real Life. Is this a fragment of life I'm experiencing before I get back home to what is real? Or is this the real thing? Am I here, now, so I'm living MY life: my authentic life?

I'll revert back to last year when Dani and Jocelyn said it so regularly that it became a tenet, a motto, THE motto: "This is my real life." They'd say it when they saw a red phone booth that looked just like the ones in the movies; when they saw the Eiffel Tower in Paris; when they looked up (at?) and kissed the Blarney Stone; when they looked around at the hooligans we teach and realized this was their job. It became the thing to say, and thus it became the thing to actually feel. This IS my real life.

It's strange to explain it to someone else, even to myself, when I continuously feel that I need to be back in Toronto to have some semblance of normalcy. But isn't this just as valid a life, just as real a life as any I could have there? I think I was caught up in the notion that because I could never "have a life" here (because I'd prefer to start one at home with my friends and family close by), that life could never really begin. But what does "having a life" really mean? Kids? I guess so. But what if I don't have kids? Gasp at the thought ;)

I guess what I'm getting at is that despite the fact that I might not have been able to articulate it before now, life is where you are living it. Life is where I am living it. Cool. Thanks for stirring up thoughts and Friday-night conversations, Laura!

Joanna Goddard shared her favourite piece of advice: "You can live the life you want." I'll take it.

I hope you're having a great weekend in your real life. :)


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