Blessings and Burdens

At the end of Little Women, Jo’s crotchety, cranky old aunt dies and leaves her estate to Jo, who decides to turn it into a school. Jo makes a comment to her mom about how sad that the aunt died so lonely when she could have had so much to give, if she had only shared. That’s when wise Marmee makes the comment that yes, she could have lived a much happier life if she had shared, but her flaw was letting her blessings become her burdens. I think about that quote a lot. Probably because I’ve lived so many different lives, and at times I’ve had so much, and at other times I’ve lived with a dirt floor and no electricity or running water. I haven’t come close to anything like that in Spain (it has definitely been nice to come to country that’s not 3rd world), but again, I feel at home we often let our blessings become our burdens.

My post on food hinted at that—our country is about mass production of food, and because we have a lot, we eat a lot.

We also have a lot of space, and a lot of stuff. I have a 1500 sq foot house in Ca. Three bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a garage and a yard. All to myself. And all full of stuff. It was nice to live without stuff. I had one suitcase of clothes. One room. A tiny bath and an even tinier kitchen. Granted, I am very excited to get home to a shower that's large enough that I don't have to open the curtain to have enough room to soap up. And that has enough water pressure that I'll want to wash my hair more than once a week. And I really missed having a couch. And more than one burner in the kitchen... So a little more space would be good. But I really don't need so much stuff! I'll have to clean out my garage when I get home, while I'm still in this mindset.