It’s been an interesting week or so for me.  In addition to the ongoing fun/drama/challenges/rewards of living with two late teen-age young men, there’s been the following:

·       My dear hubby was away from Thursday morning until Sunday night near bedtime. He re-packed, slept, and left again early Monday morning to return late this Thursday night.  We believe this makes our longest period apart in the entire 26 years we have known each other!

·       One of my co-workers absolutely cannot get along with our new boss, and the situation is near the breaking point.  It has been a simmering drama since June, and it is pretty much boiling over now.  There will certainly be resolution of some kind soon, but for now every day is filled with the conflict. I can’t even find words to describe how much I prefer my work environment to be drama-free.

·       In my role as Committee Chair of my son’s Boy Scout troop, there’s been a big issue involving a set of angry parents that has dragged on for the past two weeks.  It finally reached its denouement last night, with a formal meeting with them.  There will still be some additional chapters before the story completely wraps up, but I think we are on the downhill side now. It’s one of those situations where mistakes were made by many parties, and I have been in the position of trying to apologize for my part and mediate among the others.  That is to say, pretty much in a no-win position.

Then of course there is the drama surrounding the young guys. Not to put too fine a point on it, out of respect for their privacy, but their lives are, shall we say, never boring.  They are on somewhat different paths at this point, but both struggle on a daily basis with making peace with where they are today, finding their right path to the future, and just figuring out how to be their best selves and function in the world.  Oh, and girls.  The perpetual struggle of girls.  I never cease to be amazed at the power of girls, as evidence by the havoc they can wreak on my young guys. 

When I was younger, the point of telling all this would have been a complaint.  Today, I have come to realize that this litany of dramas and struggles is the stuff of life.  If I get hit by a Mack truck one day, people will care that I loved my husband deeply, tried to mediate conflicts, and was there for Sam and Warren.  They probably won’t care so much about my professional resume, my never-quite-clean-enough house, my depleted savings account, or my unfulfilled ambitions.  That doesn’t stop me from obsessing over any of those things occasionally.  But I realize that it is the people in my life, and how I relate to them, that make life worth living. And a sweet life it is!