Happiness is an inside job. Happiness is not easy. I am working hard at my happiness.
I’m a New York City mother to three awesome kids, (ages 13, 13, and 15), a wife to an actor husband with Parkinson’s Disease, a small business owner, a teacher, and a writer.
I “get by with a little help from my friends,” (thanks, Paul McCartney!), social media, working out, and keeping my faith.
My 7 Rules are:
1. Pile on the people
2. Escape through literature, art, and the movies
3. Remember your hoops of steel (priorities)
4. Grow a secret garden
5. Expect the best, love what you get
6. Live every day as it were your last
7. Embrace uncertainty.
I’m the co-founder and co-owner of Boot Camp For Writers.
I love comments so tell me what you’re thinking. What are your rules for creating a happy life?
Hi, nice to meet you !
Mary Beth, Your writing and the way you wrap your words around your thoughts is beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your gift with us.
Adelle
Mary Beth,
I “cyberstalked” you via your posts on Richard Beck’s “Experimental Theology” blog. Take courage. God is with you as you love your husband. As a VA Chaplain, my work with Vets with Parkinson’s has blessed me, but it can still even after all these years be a terror.
Christopher Cross’s words might help as you think of your husband:
When you get caught between the Moon and New York City
I know it’s crazy, but it’s true
If you get caught between the Moon and New York City
The best that you can do …..
The best that you can do is fall in love. . .
For me, when I am at my loneliest and most vulnerable, I take solice in these lines from T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” (I’ve quoted them on Richard’s blog before):
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
May God give you blessings and peace!
George Cooper
P.S. Because you enjoy literature, I listed my dormant blog. I have three pieces on Dante in it. Maybe they’ll be helpful for you.
Hi Mary Beth,
Just wanted to say hi and welcome from a postaday blogger. Will look out for your posts through the postaday FB group.
- Kim
I totally agree with you. It seems as though most of the world lives on resentment alone.
[...] must remember my 7 Rules. http://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/about/ And the things that always make me happy: travel, parties, museums, art, hanging out with [...]
Pleasantly surprised by your profile. May you stand firm and grow stronger day after day as you strive to achieve a ”happy, meaningful, productive life”! Thanks for sharing yr motivating thoughts.
Thanks for the kind words! I’m showing up every day in my uniform. That’s all I can do. And sometimes I get to play!
Hi. I also have a husband with Parkinson’s disease. I must say I am having a really difficult time with his “nastiness” at times. Do you find your husband being unnecessarily ‘nasty’ in his tone sometimes, often?
My husband is 54yo, and has had Parkinson’s since 1998. He had DBS surgery. He is extremely stubborn and refuses to accept that he can no longer do certain tasks. Then he gets very frustrated, and takes his frustration out on those around him.
And I find it getting harder to ‘look the other way’, and just contribute it to the Parkinson’s. I believe he knows what he is doing, and that he should just stop being unkind.