Most of us are wanting people. Obviously we are. We are daily bombarded with advertising and celebrities and beauty magazines that remind us that we should be wanting. We are reminded by our peers and co-workers that we should be doing more, sleeping less, and filling our homes with gadgets and luxuries. They go on trips and buy big homes. Our boss drives a nicer, sleeker car than ours. His boss has an office, that guy’s boss has an office and a secretary. Even the secretaries envy the boss’s boss’s private kitchen. Their wives are gorgeous and have fake boobs and exquisitely manicured nails.
It doesn’t matter how much yoga you do—I don’t do any, sadly—you will always be reminded that someone else has more, has better, looks better, does more or does better than you. In fact, yoga may be the place you’ll find yourself striving for a better body, or a better spiritual practice or a better yoga mat. It doesn’t matter where you go, there is always better, there is never best. The best is an illusion, yet it is so tempting to try to chase the best. The trick is being happy with what you have, and I’m finding that it starts with being happy with yourself.
Recently, I moved into an apartment in Denver. This was supposed to be a major achievement for me. Though I loved the people with whom I’d lived in Phoenix, this was a chance for some autonomy and a life on my own two feet. Apartment shopping proved that living in Denver is not cheap. I was not going to be able to afford it on my own; I’d need a roommate. I figured that I could still have a roommate and stand on two feet, it would just be more like a three-legged race than an all-out sprint.
The tough part about finding a roommate is finding one that is okay with having your kids stay the night occasionally, and trusting him well enough to put your kids under the same roof as he. I am very lucky, as over the last few years I have developed a close friendship with a fellow pilot who is also divorced and also has kids and is also trying to stand on his own two feet. What could be better? He lived in the Denver metro area. We were off to the races, legs tied and all.
I found the cheapest place I could that was placed evenly between my work and the airport—my roommate still flies for a living. At first I was in utter rapt with the place. It is in a nice neighborhood, it’s quite big, and has huge, new windows and old hardwood floors. But first impressions are just that, and I didn’t quite anticipate what I was getting myself and my roommate into.
I signed the lease in haste, as it was I who was able to do the apartment hunting because my new flatmate was flying in New York. I informed him that we would be moving in sometime in May. Because he was working, it was up to me to take possession and do the initial inspection. The oven was ancient and destroyed, so I asked for it to be replaced. Done. There were a few minor holes in the walls and the place needed new paint. Done. Everything else looked good. The sinks in the kitchen and the bathroom are porcelain and 70 years old. They were stained. We’re guys. Oh well.
I wont ever forget the day that I moved in. My good friend from college helped me load my nine things into the back of his pickup truck and we moved them all at once. I have a futon that I acquired from a pilot crashpad in Phoenix three years ago—I’ve been sleeping on it ever since. My friends gave me their old couch. I had a pair of lamps, a couple of night stands, a shelf, a guitar and some paintings. Moving them into our relatively large apartment certainly made them look small and few.
It took one trip to move my effects and we were done my 11am. Knowing that the kitchen was bare, I hurried off to the grocery store to stock the cupboards with the stuff that a kitchen needs. Before I left I sat down, on the couch of course, to make a list. “Salt.” I scratched my head. “Baking soda? Powder? Which is it? People always have that crap in the fridge. I don’t know why, but they do. I’ll just look for the box.” The reasoning of a soloist.
I filled the cart, exceeding my budget (which never happens, I am a strict budgeter), and checked out. My bill was three or four times what I have ever spent in groceries. It took me three trips to my car to bring up all the stuff. Exhausted from the move and my outing and putting the groceries away, I plunked down on the couch—the only thing in the whole living and dining room area. I slept hard for a while. I work a graveyard shift, so being awake for the majority of the day was tough to say the least. When I woke I was met with a tremendous hunger. Excited I went to the kitchen to prepare myself some food with my newly purchased groceries.
I didn’t buy anything extravagant. There were no chicken breasts or steaks or fancy cheeses. There were only basics. I went to my famous standby: rice and beans. Snapping my fingers I opened my cupboard to look for the generic black beans I had purchased just hours before. I grabbed the can, and the box of rice. I opened the rice and threw the cardboard top into an empty grocery bag because I had not yet gotten a trash can, or trash bags for that matter. I wrote both items on my list and grabbed the can of beans. I spun around to grab the can opener. The can opener. Oh. I didn’t have a can opener. I found my list and jotted a third item down “CAN OPENER.”
I was in my new place and my spirits were not going to be dashed. I had purchased spaghetti sauce and spaghetti. It was whole grain, even though it was seven cents more, one must be cautious with one’s health. I popped the top off of the spaghetti sauce and ripped open the box of spaghetti. Putting the trash in the grocery sac again, I turned to begin the preparation of my cheap, Italian dinner. I halted. I didn’t even need to open the cupboard to know that I didn’t have a pot, big or small, in which to boil the water or heat the watered down ketchup that was my spaghetti sauce. Pots and pans are expensive. Maybe my new roomie would have them. I did not add them to the list.
Cooking on the stove was out, so decided that I’d have to make myself some toast. I had, after all, just bought some of that high fibre bread and sugar-free jam. I opened the bag, and then the bag inside the bag (why and when did they start doing that by the way?) and grabbed two pieces of bread that were soon to be toast. I glanced around, “I don’t have a toaster. Sigh. Add it to the list.” Toasters are expensive too. I thought maybe I could do without one for a while. I scratched it off the list.
Cereal seemed like non-threatening alternative. By this point I was feeling quite deflated and hungry, though there was still a glimmer of hope. I love cereal, and though it’s not a home-cooked meal, I would settle for just “a meal.” I opened the fridge and took out the milk and opened it, and then I opened the box of cereal. I turned for a bowl and spoon and then I started swearing profusely. I had not a bowl in which to put my cereal, nor a spoon, nor a fork, nor chopsticks with which to eat it. I used more expletives as I took a swill right out of the milk carton. That perked my spirit as it was my milk and I could drink from the carton if I pleased. And I did.
Mildly perked up, I went back to the cupboard and decided to go for a personal sized bag of popcorn. It wasn’t a meal and it wasn’t fancy, but by god it was something. I took off the cellophane and just as I started to unfold it, a frustrating thought occurred to me, and I threw that unpopped bag of popcorn to the ground and kicked it across my old galley kitchen. “Son of a b–” I didn’t, and still don’t have a microwave.
I picked up my receipt from the grocery store and swore at it too. “What the hell did I buy? Nothing I can eat, clearly.” Already anxious about the money I had spend that I didn’t have, I became annoyed. Payday wasn’t for two more weeks. I grabbed an apple and resigned myself to the “couch room.” Sitting there eating my apple I realized that I had arrived. This is where my own two feet had taken me. This is what it was to stand. I chuckled a little. Then I laughed out loud. Then I choked on a chunk of my red delicious. Then I laughed more. I had a cupboards full and almost no way to sustain myself.
My roommate moved in about five days later. The first morning he was here, I ground some fresh coffee and made us a pot in my french press. Of course we have a french press, we’re not savages after all. I had purchased a few more items so that our place was livable. We now had two forks, two spoons, two knives, two bowls, two plates, trash bags, a trash can, two oven mits and a broiling pan; all compliments of the dollar store. Eager to show him my accomplishments, I pulled the bowls out of the cupboard. One clumsily slipped from my had and shattered in the stained sink, “…and we have one bowl.” I picked of the shards of my crappy bowl and put them in the new trash can. The lid on the trash can had broken the day before. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and he and I each a cup of coffee and went to join him in the couch room.
I ate as we talked, and sipped the delicious coffee and caught up with my new housemate. This was going to be awesome. We talked about all the ways we could furnish the apartment and ways we could decorate, and appropriate rules for the home. He stopped talking after a while and kind of stared at me. He had stopped listening. “What is it?” I asked him, “something I said?” He laughed, and set down his coffee. “Dude, I’m hungry and you have our only bowl.”
My building is old, and has no air conditioning. This was something I didn’t consider in April when I signed the lease securing our cheap rent. It has a evaporative cooler that cools the corridors outside the apartment, but usually, by the time I get home it’s sweltering in here. My bed only has a fitted sheet. Even sleeping under a single flat sheet proves too hot. My flatmate did indeed have some pots and pans. Apropos, they’re the galley style that don’t have handles, but rather there is a single handle that attaches and detaches by which we can grab the pots and pans. He also has a dining room table at which I am sitting now. It has four chairs in which we sit carefully, as they are as old as the ancient table and may collapse at any moment. The rule of having no elbows on the table does apply to our home, but it’s more for safety than for etiquette.
He also brought over his massive projection screen television. There is something wrong with its internal cooling system I suspect, because if it stays on for more than forty-five minutes, it will suddenly shut down and refuse to turn back on for a good five to ten minutes. This rules out the possibility of watching any sort of hour-long sitcom. The bulb in the TV is also going bad, as the screen is not very bright. If you want to watch forty-five minutes or so of television during the day, you have to close the blinds so you can see what’s going on. I don’t watch television, for obvious reasons, but having the television does make me feel more normal.
We don’t have much. We still don’t have a microwave, and we don’t have a toaster. We don’t have a dishwasher and we don’t have a clothes washer or dryer either. We do have a few more bowls and plates and forks and spoons and knives. None of them match, of course, but that’s okay. We have plenty of cups and plates for kids, as they seem to go through them like it’s their job.
I bought some Tupperware or Rubbermaid somethings for my lunches, though it would seem that the majority of that set has already been misplaced. I won’t be spending the money for good ones in the future. Ironically, I bought those ones because they were microwave safe. What’s wrong with me?
I’ll tell you something, though. I know that I don’t have much. You could rob me blind and I wouldn’t know the difference, but I’m happy. Not every day. Some days I wish that I could have a guest over and suggest more than dancing. We could host a ball in our couch room. I know that I’m in a three-legged race, but that doesn’t matter: I’m using the two that I have. And one more thing, my place is clean. It’s really easy to straighten up a room with two things in it.
When my kids are here, there is plenty of space for them. We make a mess and it’s pretty simple to fix. They can run around and go nuts and flail their arms and legs and not break anything (of value anyway). We have plenty of incentive to leave the house. We can’t watch TV; or we can, but we usually miss the climax of the show. We read a lot of books and we go to the library and visit the museum because they’re free and we can enjoy each other without the distraction of a bunch of “things.”
I truly believe that the more you own, the more you’re owned. I’m not saying that I don’t want things. Of course, I’d like a couple of nice chairs and a coffee table and a rug and toaster. But I still don’t want a microwave and I don’t want a better television and I don’t want a dishwasher. I enjoy making things on the stove. I don’t need the distraction of a television. And I like knowing that my dishes are 100% clean. Sure I’d love to have a place to myself and my kids, but that’s not a reality for the time being, and I have a good housemate.
The more you strive and try to accomplish and acquire, the farther you get, it seems, from ever reaching the goal. I think it’s because the goal keeps moving with you. If you’re never satisfied with what you have, you’ll never be satisfied with your results. Probably the most important thing is to be satisfied with who you are: overweight, underpaid, under-educated, or lonely. Because it doesn’t matter what you add to your life it wont make it better and it will never be enough. People say that I’ve “lost everything.” I see that my life is a Spartan existence. But my kids are here tonight. I’m healthy and I’m proud of myself. I do everything I can every day do make sure I find my own approval and my priorities are straight. Some days I fail miserably. Some days I get angry because I have to go to the convenience store to buy quarters for laundry. But some days I have a cup of coffee in my couch room and think, “I’m okay. This is okay.” For that I think I’m richer than most.
