Making Your Life

This post is coming to you a couple of days late because I was busy on the weekend witnessing my sister's wedding.

Here's a picture of the happy couple, with emphasis on the word happy.

Earlier in the week, and at the opposite end of the happy spectrum, I went to a meeting with my City Council representative - Kristen Wong-Tam - convened by the members of the condo board.

I was glad that they'd arranged the meeting and had looked forward to it. I like Wong-Tam. She's a good city councillor.

The board hadn't circulated an agenda, so I was wondering what they would talk about.

But I hadn't really needed to wonder. 

Readers know mine is a very colourful neighbourhood. You may also recall that, with the politicized installation of the Sherbourne Street bike lane, we have all been inconvenienced a bit in accessing our properties.

That said, I barely recognized the place as it was described by the board to Wong-Tam. According to them, the quality of our lives had been all but destroyed since the bike lane came in and the street crime made us all prisoners in our own homes and those awful drunks in Allan Gardens ... and so on.

All at once at one point in the evening, I recalled with perfect clarity why it was impossible for me to serve on the Board with these people, felt a great sympathy for Wong-Tam who remained poised, well-spoken and focused as my neighbours heaped one impossible problem after another on her, and yearned to go home where things were pleasant and appreciated, the neighbourhood held no terrors and the bike lane was a good thing because it calmed traffic, had fixed the street and made the city a better place.

I believe - as frequently asserted in greeting cards and other sources of wisdom - that your life is what you make it. You bring your own joy, your own sorrow to everything that happens to you. The people seated next to me at the meeting with Wong-Tam decided to find a well of sorrow in their pleasant, easy and peaceful lives. The eighty-two-year-old father of the groom seated next to me at the wedding feast had just lost his wife to cancer but had a grand time, chatted animately about many things and enjoyed every bite of the fine meal.

You choose.

Thanks for reading!

Molly's next-to-last (honest this time) post is here.

Have a great week!

Karen