A lit candle

The whole nation is reacting to the terrorist attacks in Boston, but our household is reacting in it's own way.

Satu is a remarkable woman. It is hard to know how sensitive she is because when she grieves, she does so in private. She is so controlled with her expression that heartbreak has no outlet except to cause her physical pain that she has to deal with. I am talking about the Boston Marathon, but I am also talking about who I know Satu to be because of the way she processes events like this. She keeps vigil.
Satu reads the September 11th bombing victim's names because she says that we have to remember not just the events, but the people. We have to remember that the lives lost will forever mean lost sisters and fathers and friends.

Satu reads names on memorials and reflects on the roadside offerings of strangers who have lost loved ones. When the Boston bombing happened, Satu began searching the pictures for meaning and she kept the news playing at great cost to her emotional welfare. She believes you shouldn't distract yourself from these things, as if sharing the horror and grief over and over again is somehow lightening the burden of others who are grieving. She doesn't give up. As her stomach twists into painful knots and sleep eludes her, she presses on trying to understand.
You should care. We should all care, but is also important to know your limits and when to lay down the burden, light a candle and give thanks for your life.

It's going to be OK

This might help.

Satu showed me pictures of dogs underwater when I felt like I was a tiny thing in the ocean. It helped. It amazes me how she can show me such understanding no matter how stormy her own ocean is. I wish I knew how to find the right thing for her when she feels overwhelmed.

I think we both struggle with uncertainty about how to make a meaningful and fulfilling life. Satu struggles more than I do though because she has a vision for her life that keeps getting set aside in order to do the responsible, grown up thing. I think I have always seen work as something that I do in order to pay bills so that I can live my life with her. I want to be good at what I do, but it doesn't define me. Satu is different because a bad work life is destroying her creative life and that erodes who she is and how she measures herself.

I think it is ok to quit when you don't want to be where you find yourself.  In fact, I think sometimes you have to cut your losses in order to keep afloat. Quitting a job is not the same as giving up. To me, it doesn't matter how many times you start over in life as long as you are the kind of person who will start over and over and over. I have taken many steps backward and I don't know for sure that those choices were right, but I am inclined to believe that they were because they were right at the time. There is really no winning the bigger game. There are going to be good times and bad times if you are a millionaire or if you live pay check to pay check and no one is really measuring your success except you. Even people that you admire for what they have achieved are just people like the rest of us. They have proud moments and dark times and not everything they do is golden.

Satu is a good person when she is happy, but she is also a good person when she is struggling and that, more than anything, is why I think that she hung the moon. She keeps trying.

Full of surprises

For as much as Satu likes to delay gratification, she also seems to delight in surprising me. Often I will turn a corner in the house to find her squatting on her haunches, hands over her head making a little troll face at me. It makes me laugh every single time. If she did it ten times in a row, I would laugh every single time. Here are some other things that surprise me about Satu.

1. She likes twizzlers.
2. She is fascinated with teeth.
3. She is an incredibly feisty driver.
4. She is shy about the neighbors and delivery men and the mailman.
5. Her favorite cuss words are "horse shit."
6. She still asks me for fashion approval.
7. She thinks Aerosmith's "Rag Doll" is a sexy song.
8. She walks at a jogging pace.
9. Her boot knife matches her outfit.
10. She knows what to do when there is a bat in the room.
11. She has shoes from 1982 that are still in good shape.
12. Plastic hampsters, cardboard boats and fake crickets appeal to her.

and just to make it a bakers dozen,

13. She prefers childrens games because you can't win them and there is no pressure that way.