With the pale blue sky above me and the soft twitterings of birds drifting down from the trees and our rooftop, I find it impossible to be gloomy.  Here on my porch, a cup of coffee nearby, wrapped in a colorful sweatshirt, I feel more content than I have for a long time.

I’ve had a few challenges to my resolve to live complaint-free this week.  I found several fairly serious mistakes made by an employee and snapped at her, something for which I quickly and thoroughly apologized.  Nothing that needs to be said must be said in ugly tones; and on that day, my tone regressed to exasperation.  Within minutes, I realized what I had done, and asked for her forgivness.

Other personal challenges draw me away from my resolve to live complaint-free.  I’ve not necessarily handled those challenges well this week.  My greatest puzzlement lies in my inability to handle the suggestions of others for how I should change, even if the ideas expressed seem thoughtful and well-intended.  I’m told to work less, sleep more, do this, do that; and I find myself wondering if I’m just someone’s class project.  I can’t quite figure out why I resent the efforts of others to advise me.  Perhaps I fear that their attempts stem from their basic belief that I am incapable of managing my own affairs.

Whatever the case, I find myself rocking back on my feet, trying to see the goodness in the efforts of others to help me better my situation.  They mean well, I tell myself.  Don’t take it personally, I caution, inwardly.  Nobody’s criticizing you.  They just want you to feel good.  I move past the moment, smile, thank the well-meaning advisor, and stow their suggestions away for later reflection.

I listen to other people’s problems for a living.  I pursue litigation on their behalf, sometimes with complete success, other times failing utterly.  Most times, I find the middle ground.  As client after client sits in my office unburdening themselves, I find my mind drifting, my eyes shifting to the window, my spirit wandering.  I draw my attention back to my client; they deserve my utmost focus.  But decades of this rapt listening has worn me.  I crave silence.  I crave moments like the one in which I find myself this morning:  soft breeze, sweet smells, warm sun.  I yearn for peace.

At a gathering last night, someone asked me if I am close to my siblings.  I was closest to one who died, I told her, realizing that I had rarely spoken those words outloud.  How long ago did he die, she asked.  She gasped when I told her that it had been seventeen years; seventeen years this June.  Oh my, he must have been young, she sighed.  Indeed.  Thirty-seven.

Every year, as the anniversary of my brother’s passing approaches, I think about the burdens he carried.  Demons rode his back; as demons cling to all of us.  I have my own.  Most of mine hide just out of sight, snickering, telling me that I’m not good enough, or pretty enough, or successful enough.  These taunts inform me less and less as I let go of the twisted ways that my insecurities have made me behave.  My brother Steve and I had any of the same demons: A damaging father, essential insecurity, failed relationships.  Sorrowfully, he choose death as a way of escaping them.

I choose life.