Life Lessons

Mia spent the day with her friend Chloe today. This is the friend who lives in Winchester. To give you a little insight - Winchester is this town here that is unlike any other town around really. As soon as you enter this town's limits you hear Disney birds chirping merrily. The parks are greener and the streets are wider. All the residents of this town just seem happier than other people. It's cleaner and safer and has better schools than any other town around. The houses are all much bigger than could possibly be necessary and all the people living in them have happiness that is multiplied by the millions.

Okay, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. It is a really nice town. This is the friend who made Mia realize almost a year ago that we had less money than some other people. In particular, she was up set that our house was not four stories and that we did not have one, let alone multiple, fireplaces within our simple, Malden home. The friend and her family are all lovely and have never at any point made any of us feel less than they are. It was simply Mia's perception.

Back to today - when they showed up to drop Mia off this evening Lennon had gone to bed already. They had spent the day frolicking in the country club pool and lunching over white table cloths at the club restaurant. They almost had a double tennis lesson, but the timing was just slightly off. After all this, I imagined Mia would come home feeling even more financially inferior. Especially since we just told her last night that Shelby no longer had a job. I was expecting her to come home spewing all the wonderful activities they had done over the day and gushing about how wonderfully amazing the club was, etc., etc. To my surprise, The mother and Chloe walked Mia up to our front door, Mia took Chloe up to show her the pinkest bedroom ever and then I took the girls out back to show Chloe "the wilderness." Apparently, Mia had been touting the wonders of our backyard all day long. As soon as we rounded the corner and had a full view of the back yard Chloe said in awe, "Oh Mia! Your house is soo much cooler than mine."

Now, in no way do I want anyone to feel that their house in inferior or superior to anyone else's. I just thought it was a perfect example to Mia of the concept that I have tried to explain to her. Everyone has different things in their lives that they wish were different. Everyone wants what they don't have. It's hard to appreciate your own life sometimes, but just being aware that nothing is ever going to be enough is a good start. I hope that she can find happiness inside herself and not have to look to stuff to make her feel whole.