I'm a Sucker for a Snowman

I live in the town where I was born. I didn't always live here. For 32 years I lived away in Los Angeles and elsewhere. But at the first opportunity to move back, we leaped into the unknown. The town has changed dramatically since I left at the age of 12, but some people I knew or who knew my parents and grandparents still live here, as does some family.

In the oak woodlands where I live, the winters are cold and the summers hot. When I was 3 or 4, we got snow here. I don't remember it, but there's a family snapshot of my dad, my older brother, and me making a snowman in the front yard.

I grew up to have a soft spot for snowmen. I collect them at Christmastime, and I have two boxes and one bag of snowmen in various forms. Sometimes I get lucky and find a snowman water globe like the one here. I really like the falling white snow and the music they play. It only lasts a moment before everything settles, and the music stops. But I can keep enjoying those moments.

I've learned in sobriety how to enjoy the moments. How to recognize one is happening, in the first place. As a drunk, life was just too full of varying miseries for me to enjoy much of anything except the first half-hour of the buzz. And that didn't last either.

Jolts of happiness and contentment come now at odd moments during my days. I'll feel a feeling and recognize it as something like joy. And today I pause when that moment is here, and I savor it. It's like my moments with the snowman water globe, so lovely while it's happening. Just like everything does, it will settle into ordinary soon enough.

But these moments of joy add up into a life that's actually very full of them, if I stay mindful.

What moments do you savor? What happened recently that gave you a burst of joy?

I hope your holidays are full of such sweet times.