I know, this is a big fat moan, but…

Some days it feels like all the things I’ve struggled to learn, my husband already knew or was born knowing. Like somehow soaking up the simple joys of life is intuitive to him, while I need to scrabble and reach and strive and rework my every instinct to come round to just seeing these joys, never mind drinking them in.

One example is the pleasure he seems to take in the everyday, the usual, the familiar. He acts knowing that it’s the simple things you do every day that really matter, not the exceptional things you do once-in-awhile.

After dinner, my mind is off soaring into an imaginary future where we’re snowboarding in BC. I’m worrying about immigration applications, possible future family dramas, and imagining how beautiful it will be there, and then… when we finally get there.

But John, he’s actually in the room, doing the dishes or playing with the kids, in the moment, listening to nonsensical knock-knock jokes for the hundredth time.

“Knock Knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Chicken”

“Chicken who?”

“No… silly, my name is Chicken scarfy booboo!”

They don’t make sense at all, but you gotta laugh at their enthusiasm. At least the first fifteen times.

Will I be able to enjoy their silly knock knock jokes once I have arrived on that ski hill surrounded by snowy trees, or will my mind already be out of the moment, making the next plan?