I'm Leading the Good Life Through My Grandchildren's Eyes

Our move back to Virginia from Oklahoma was a scary one for me. I'd held the same job for 10 years and owned my own company in conjunction with my two best friends. I owned my own home which I had lovingly decorated myself. I was active in the Chamber of Commerce and the community. So it was a real leap of faith to abandon everything I knew and trusted to make the move.

The first weeks back on the Virginia Peninsula were frightening. I went to headhunter after headhunter in search of a job only to be told the same thing over and over again. "You are too qualified for secretarial work and too narrowly trained for management." What they really meant was "I was too old!" I have to admit that I had more than my share of panic attacks in the beginning. I wondered if my life might be over. But I quickly found out that it had finally just begun.

I've been thinking a lot recently about what constitutes "the good life." If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have said that it was "a strong marriage, a loving family, a good job, and enough money to buy what I wanted." My answer today is quite different.

The good life to me now is something so much simpler. It is being truly happy, from the top of my head to the very tip of my toes. It is finding myself smiling for absolutely no reason at all. It is walking in the hot sun or ice cold snow and not caring about the weather, but just enjoying the beauty of God's creation. It is the simple moments that so many people take for granted like dinner with the family or a little voice on the other end of the phone saying "I love you, Nana!"

I'm not exactly sure when I slipped into the rut of the comfortable life. I certainly wasn't raised that way. I came from a modest background. But somewhere along the line, I started to believe in the false American dream of a big house, a new car, and plenty of money. I didn't mean to buy into the lie, but somehow I did.

Today, my husband and I live in a small apartment; our car is six years old; and we barely squeak by money wise. Yet, in many ways I'm happier than I've ever been in life. That just goes to prove the old adage that "money ain't everything!"