I woke early. I clearly wasn’t going back to sleep so I got up, dressed, and headed out to take my walk and see the sun rise. Nice morning for it, although all the trees are in bloom and carrying extra tissues has become a Spring ritual. I get down the path to my usual halfway point before daybreak.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

A fit of sneezing overtakes me, and I use up the pack of travel tissues in my left pocket. It’s fine; I have an unopened pack in my right pocket. I giggle out loud to be so well prepared, but to be fair, it’s not my first Spring. 😆 I clear my throat a little hoarsely. I took allergy meds this morning, they haven’t kicked in yet.

Like a lot of people, “the money thing” is weighing more heavily on me lately. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying things that once felt thoroughly affordable and low risk, now require thoughtful planning. A lot of things are more expensive (in some cases by quite a lot), but wages never seem to be among the dollar amounts going up. “Cost of living”… It’s also a cost of thriving, a cost of exploring life’s possibilities, a cost of doing something meaningful with this mortal life, a cost of freedom from struggle, a cost of necessary medical care… Everything seems to have a price tag. Lots of shiny distractions to keep us busy so maybe we don’t ask why it’s worth it to spend many hundreds of billions on a foreign war (which we instigated for no clear worthwhile cause), instead of investing those resources in our national infrastructure, and domestic programs. It’s a question worth asking.

I sigh to myself. Even for me it is a question for another time. It is Tuesday. I was away from work yesterday, finishing up the many moving details of sending the Anxious Adventurer back to his home state and more familiar circumstances. My muscles are sore and my studio (which serves as my home office, too) is full of bland brown boxes containing a lifetime of creative work carefully compressed into about two cubic yards. So strange. There is so much meaning packed into those boxes.

I sit by the trail reflecting on the relative value of things and experiences. Which matters most, truly, meaning or money? A sense of purpose, or of financial security? The jobs we do to pay the bills, or the lives we live once the bills are paid? Complicated questions, but only because we are pushed to be “productive citizens” from the day we’re born (unless we happen to be born into profound wealth, in which case, the rules appear to be quite different).

I sigh to myself and reflect on sufficiency. I’m grateful to have a sense of purpose, and to feel that my life is meaningful. I didn’t always feel this way and it took some work to get here. I sit listening to peeping frogs down on the creekbank, or perhaps in the trees. I let the sound pull me back to “now”, and this fleeting lived moment. Moments are so brief. I smile and think of my Traveling Partner. I am fortunate to enjoy our shared journey through life. 16 years together coming up soon. 15 married. My longest long-term relationship. We’ve been through some things together. My heart fills with gratitude and love.

I smile to myself. I’m fortunate to be so moved by such simple wholesome experiences in life. It is by far less costly than chasing some perpetually unreachable yearning that somehow fails to satisfy, however close I may come to achieving it. I’ve been there too, and I’m grateful to have walked on from that chaos. I’d rather be in my garden.

… Shit. I remind myself to get out into the garden before the recently weeded beds are once again overgrown with nothing of value. There’s a metaphor there. I sit with that thought, and consider the work that always needs doing. How very like life that is.

I sigh as I stand and brush off my jeans. The clock is ticking. Daylight has come. It’s already time to begin again.