Don’t Get Too Jealous
Don’t get too jealous.
Yes, at the moment, I live in southern Florida. Five minutes from the coast. It’s 75 and 80 degrees in January. Yes, I live in a beautiful eco-village that values nature and, therefore, I am surrounded by beauty that I love to capture and share on social media. Flamboyant flowers I’ve never seen before show off to the eager butterflies, vines climb the palmettos and Spanish moss dangles off of old live oak trees.
There is an old boardwalk to the river and a medicine wheel in the forest. Hawks are always flying over the lush gardens where you can pick your breakfast off the trees. Starfruit, papayas and oranges, oh my!
Warm, self-aware and interesting people populate the community. We’re blessed with a Swami who is also a talented chef. I can see all the stars at night and I hear the owls hooting as I drift off to sleep. The smell of sweet almond blossom could send you to heaven. Seriously.
But don’t get too jealous.
I know when I post pictures on social media, some of my friends and family up north get envious. They think I’ve got it made because the winter here feels like summer sometimes.
And I am lucky! I’m so grateful to be where I am and this place is absolutely gorgeous. A great example of how an efficient sustainable supportive community could be set up in harmony with nature.
But you don’t see the twenty seven mosquito bites all over my body (and counting). You don’t see the constant barrage of fire ants or feel the hot itchy aftermath. You aren’t doing the back breaking work of gardening, weeding and mulching all day in the sun. At the end of the day you’re not sweaty, smelly and covered in sticky dirt and the feeling of bugs crawling all over you. Or bugs literally crawling all over you.
You don’t sleep in a sandy tent you can’t stand up in. You don’t have mold on your sleeping bag or sometimes have to pee in a jar so you don’t have to leave your tent at night only to let more mosquitos in.
But I’m not complaining.
You have your own stuff to deal with. Maybe it’s the snow, or that frozen burning sensation you feel when you breath the dry cold air. Or maybe something more serious is happening and you think your problems would be solved if you were in the picture I took next to the palm tree.
I love my life and I love the choices I’ve made. This is no exception. But they’re just choices. Everyone makes different ones. No one is immune to the human condition. There’s no escape. Your shit follows you everywhere, even paradise.
That’s why composting is so important!
So when you find yourself jealous of all those people on social media posting those perfect pictures of supposed perfect lives on social media, it’s really just the high moment. You have to look for the beauty in all moments no matter where you’re at. Normal mundane buggy-bite things happen all day around here. And just remember, when you’re looking at all the picturesque scenes I post, I just peed in a jar.
