PAUSE LIFE

“Curiosity killed the cat,
But satisfaction brought it back.”

As the children were climbing the physical walls in the backyard this afternoon, I thought about all of those figurative ones I climbed this past week. I realised much of the angst of the evening routine had to do with all four of us being confined to one queen-sized mattress in my room on the floor as I was still deciding what to do with my living arrangements.

Though I have been living here for a month now, I have yet to set up anything. Even until today I was looking at other rental options on Zillow closer to the children's new school but the only affordable options I found were small apartments. I was not sure if it made financial sense to go through yet another arduous move before next spring or until an offer I couldn't refuse presented itself.

Seeing how there is no such offer in the near future, I resolved myself to having to start putting together the children's beds next week. That would at least get rid of the fighting for space on the bed though they are quite used this arrangement for the first several years of their lives.

From the back patio door, I watched the children climb the walls and jump off only to climb back up again. I heard them greet passersby with 'Hello people' and saw them wave to the cars driving by. This lasted for about fifteen minutes until we had to drive to school for the Science Fair tonight.

One of the projects which caught my attention was the 'Pause Life Button' box. The small black rectangular box was simple as it contained an On/Off button where you could pause life so you could avoid the bad things in life such as tsunamis and bad people, as the poster stated. But avoiding the bad serves little purpose as learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others is life's great lesson.

Learning to navigate through the bad parts in life makes us appreciate the good when it comes our way. It makes us stronger and thus builds character. A life without anything bad in it would certainly be an uninteresting life as challenge is what makes us alive. It is what makes us want to get up the following day and figure out that which we could not figure out the day before.

In a sense, I have been living in a state of suspense but realised I could no longer live in 'Pause' mode. I need to hit 'Play' and see where that takes me afterwards. Curiosity is the beauty of life. And it is satisfaction which brings us back...like the cat.