Kiss Kiss

If you had told me a few months ago that I would be working again at a job I love, in a field of work that I find fulfilling and uplifting (I know that sounds weird since I work in hospice), in a place that is so beautiful that it sometimes feels like I’m dreaming  I would probably have thought you were crazy   Now here I am, about to celebrate my 90 days on a job working with a great staff and coming home every night to my extraordinary super husband  and sometimes my eyes well with tears when I think about how truly happy I am.  Chris and Juliet are a few minutes away and our weekly visits are such a treasure after living so far apart for so many years.  Though I would be in total happy land if Andy were closer I knowing that he is happily in love and working at a job he likes and doing well makes me happy too. 

And though there  have been a few things in the last few months that have given me heartache, like Juliet and Chris’s miscarriage and Shelby dying before I ever had the chance to have her home again, and realizing that sometimes the people you think you can count on don’t come thru when it counts, and an ingrown toenail…lol  Well in the scheme of things, I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams.

The more I get away from the stuff and embrace this  simple and  uncluttered life of RV living, the more I realize that the things that I need to make me happy are not things at all.   

All that to say that this place we are living, this “city” outside of Austin called Bee Cave (though Joe continues to call it Bee Hive cause that makes a whole lot more sense) reminds me a little of the first time I went to Las Vegas and looked around and thought “wow, this light fixture in the casino cost more than my car”  All around me the excesses were both amazing and disgusting. 

Here in Bee Cave, you see a whole lot of extravagance.  The homes here “start in the 240’s”    one sign says “live here and make your friends jealous, homes from the 700’s.  The road that we live was at one time , about 30 years  ago   a road in the middle of no where leading to a pool where we watched hippies dive off a cliff into the water while nude sunbathers frolicked on the beach. Now you have so many people that want to go to that “pool” that they limit the number of people who can visit it each day to save the wear and tear on the landscaping.  We checked on a piece of property on this road we live on, 6 acres which was priced at 1 million dollars.   Now, don’t get me wrong, the views are spectacular.  But the excesses are so blatant here that sometimes I just want to walk up and ask these  people what they do for a living.  Every other car is a BMW or a Mercedes in this little place.  Hummer abound.  My Chevy sticks out like a sore thumb, course the bright canary yellow doesn’t make it less noticeable.  The grocery store demos wine and sushi daily.   I never leave the store without feeling like I’m in a “what not to wear” picture someone took.   Yester day, I overheard a kid about 3 decked out in designer clothes say to her parent “mummy, Preston took myEvian”  Really? 

As I push my cart through the aisles and listen to the conversations as I pass I don’t have an ounce of envy for these people.  I suppose I could learn the air kiss on each cheek thing, say things like “lets have lunch at the club soon”, you have to see the new divan we just bought in Paris, its divine.  But truly, if I had a million dollars I would never wannabe one of these haveitalls.   Because I would hazard a guess that the balls that must be juggled continually to keep up with the demands of keeping up with the Jones’s in this place must get heavier and heavier by the day. 

I like being the “trailer trash” of Bee Cave.  Give me a payment free RV on a piece of land in paradise that cost less a month to lease than a pair of shoes at the exclusive Galleria mall up the road anyday.  I don’t need the things to be happy.  That’s the thing.  The things didn’t make me happy.  Not having the things is the most fulfilling life of all.

Kiss kiss, I’m off to walk my Yorkie…its so hard to keep a good dog nanny these days.