Damn Swede

Or so Dr. Phil would have us to believe during the intro of his show.

I was cleaning the house on the First when his show came on and he made this statement. It is a silly thing to cause me pause, but I realized I am not that excited about my life. As I continued my cleaning I took a quick mental inventory:
WORK - I work at a place where promises are made and broken as quickly as Pamela Anderson’s marriages. Processes are implemented to complicate lives, not streamline them. Employee satisfaction is spoken of but never addressed. I feel defeated because there is nothing I can do to change my environment, even though I adore the people I work with and find the actual work interesting. Well, nothing but leave.

LOVE - My mother asked me over Christmas, “Are you still okay with being single?” Hum. I am content. I would like to find a man that I can love and who will love me. I don’t want to settle for just any man, however, and for the right one I will wait.

FAMILY & FRIENDS - I just moved to Chicago 2.5 years ago. True friendships take time to develop and I am still in the process of developing them. My neighbor, who is perhaps my closest local friend, will move to the South Side in less than two weeks. We all know about my brother’s family, my friends and the parents of my goddaughter moved earlier this year, so this move pretty much completes the cycle. At this point I am annoying myself because it sounds so melodramatic. I am truly blessed with by my loving and supportive family, which is mostly luck. I feel even more blessed by the friendships I have developed over the years. I just wish they lived here!

FAITH - When I got to this point, I stopped cleaning. My conversion to Orthodoxy happened in a church that was comprised of one extended family plus a couple others. This family had a lot of family traditions, treated as THE Tradition, that befuttled a convert like me. The church I attend now, in addition to the guidance from my brother, has opened my eyes over the past couple years even further to the mysteries of True Faith. This, combined with the inpending responsibility of my first godchild, makes me excited.

I suppose that there is a lesson to be had in there somewhere. I may switch jobs, go on numberless first dates, endure many heartbreaks and see friends come in and out of my life . . . but my faith will always be constant.