And you complain of the spill.”

View of Superior on an evening ski tour.

My friend The Shiro said this to me and it really struck me.  It makes me think a lot about whether happiness is its own entity or the sum its parts.  For example, if I wake up at a normal hour, smooch my sweetheart, have a home brewed cup of joe, ski a foot or two of fresh, and go to work for a few enjoyable hours, do those things add up to happiness?  Or is happiness a decision you make when you awaken and all subsequent events and attitudes support that decision?  A friend said to me, “Happiness is not necessarily having what you want, it’s wanting what you have.”

I thought he was joking about the risqué Leia costume…

Never gets old. No never, not ever.

Wow. Wow. WOW. MOM. COW. The Shiro was Not Amused.

Gran’s kitchen roosters sent from the Spencer Kids. Love.

This week has been epic.  I am in my last week of Trauma and amid two 30 hour call shifts I have lived it up.  I celebrated Thanksgiving with a heap of good friends at Jim’s house.  I have skied FIVE times this week, one of which was in ALL TIME conditions with the Shiro himself.    I’ve gotten to spend a heap of time with Jim the James, who is Good. To. Me.  And I got to celebrate Spencer, Jamal and Philly Phil’s birthdays.  Life has been full.

An early season trompabout followed by a high alpine soak. Sigh.

I sometimes look back on my pre-residency life, and that was pretty good too.  The pictures probably would have looked very similar, in fact.  All the pieces were there: love, living in a beautiful place, great friends.  But I wasn’t very happy; the components didn’t add up to a sum which was satisfactory to me.  Life, I have found, is perplexing in that way.   “I was so sure what I needed was more, tried to shoot out the sun.”  So now I’m trying to figure out how to have all of those things again without being complacent, taking them for granted, or complaining of the spill.