We also have to move. More on that in a moment…

It’s a little weird that she posted that today because I was wondering that myself on the drive home last night. It’s a question I’ve asked myself numerous times in the last year or so. I didn’t ask that question very often in the previous 36 years or so, though, because the answer was, I thought, “definitely not.”

But lately? Yes, I believe I am. Am I not sure? I guess I’m not sure, primarily because for the longest time I wouldn’t have recognized happiness. Whatever this…”state”…is, though, it sure feels like happiness. Peace, certainly.

A good question. Are you happy? If you are, why? And if you are not, what might make you happy? And how much of what you are feeling — happy, or unhappy — is related to how aware you are of the blessings you have in your life.

I hate to admit it, but yes, my happiness is related to the blessings in my life. I have “stuff,” in both the material sense and in the “relational” sense. As in, I have a great wife and two astoundingly beautiful children. We have enough food and a cozy little house that will be the first home I’ve ever had after leaving my parents’ place that I’ll be sad to leave. (We rent, but our place is perfect for us — we no longer live in that permanent state of dislocation known as “apartment living.”) We even have two cars.

More than anything else, perhaps ironically, I’m happy because I’ve struggled. I’ve worked damn hard to accomplish what I have. I’ve been knocked down at least as many times as I’ve soared higher. In the last 3-4 years, I’ve put in more 15 hours days than I care to count, both doing brutal manual labor and stretching the limits of my mind to create a little business. All through that, I’ve tried — sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully — to be a good and available husband and father. I have new scars, vastly diminished sentimentality, and a lot more faith. Maturity? Maybe. I like to think of it as a lot less BS in my life.

Maybe that’s where the happiness comes from. If you downsize both in terms of possessions and bad ideas/bad thinking/rotten ideologies, get down to the bare necessities and the basics, you’ll naturally “feel lighter.” That’s how it worked for me. All that dead wood was burned away, leaving nothing left but me. “Me” needed a lot of work, but at least I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in a lot of other junk.

I dunno. I’m just happy. I have a simple life and a manageable level of BS. Life is good.

I spent a good chunk of the day flow-charting on this gigantic white board someone gave me during an office move. It’s bigger than most walls in my house, but I thought (rightly) that it would be a good tool to flesh out my random thoughts.

In the last two years I’ve re-worked the moving biz plan several times, usually going in a circular motion. There are several significant regulatory hurdles to overcome or comply with (at a not insignificant cost), but as I’m now grossing a decent amount every month, and, the relatively arbitrary Rubicon of the New Year has been crossed, it’s go-time. The hurdles are about to get jumped.

And I’m scared shitless. Pardon the French, but as I told my wife today, my body is going through what feels like a seared conscience. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t done anything that would merit a seared conscience, but the phsyiological feelings (sorry, it’s late) are about the same. I’m so nervous that my hands are shaking, my thoughts are jumping all the fences, and I’m waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong. I think of this as a “light” blog — no particularly deep thoughts involved — but I have to confess this not-so-particularly-light sentiment: I feel like I’m about to die.

Crazy, isn’t it? I hope so. But that’s what it feels like. Remember that Seinfeld episode where George says he doesn’t think God would ever let him be successful? Jerry says “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” George replies that he does, but only for the bad stuff.

I’m about to push this business into a very serious, very potentially profitable place, and if all goes according to plan, it will probably get a lot more attention. Working as it has been “behind the scenes,” that scares the hell out of me.

Call it stage fright. Call it opening night jitters. Call it buck fever. Call it whatever you want, but I got it.

This is where I would normally throw in the towel and say I made a good effort. But I have a family, and if not for them, that’s exactly what I would do. However, since I’m responsible for the well-being of two, and soon to be three people, I have no choice but to take this little business to wherever it’s going to go.

I ran the numbers today. (About time, right?) By replicating what I do with four or so moving crews and taking a small percentage of their income as a referral fee, I’ll make…well, that wouldn’t be very polite of me, would it? Suffice it to say it’ll be comfortable. In the beginning, it’ll be hell, of course. I’ll be dealing with logistical complications that have made all my prior work seem like stacking my son’s blocks, but the potential payoff is well worth the effort.

I have until June. That’s when I need to be available for my wife and the kids. It’s not as though I’m totally unavailable right now, but unless things are well along by June, there’s no way I can maintain my current work schedule AND help out around here. I just can’t do it.

So, pressure’s on. It scares the hell out of me, but man, life has never been more exciting.

And now they’re advertising for Christmas crap.

I do enjoy living in a place where there’s different and distinct seasons. The trick is to slow down enough to notice them.

I guess it’s natural to muse broadly at the end of the year (or the end of life). But it’s more than just idle musing for me — I’m astounded at how fast this year has gone by. To be sure, there have been some really, really slow grinding days, but I’ve always known that  we would reach the end of the day eventually. It really does seem to me that I’ve tunneled through a wormhole and stepped into November 2009. My body says that something happened in that allegedly instantaneous leap, though: I have a crushed fingernail on my left hand, I’ve lost a ton of weight (not literally, of course), my pickup truck is beat to hell, and I have all these guys asking me for work every day? How the hell did that happen? The last time I really paid attention, I was an overpaid, balding, overweight drone stuck in an office wondering when they’d finally do the right thing and fire my butt.

Meh.

So, here’s an MTB status report:

May have had a record month in October. I couldn’t have predicted that. If you’d asked, I would have said we’d be starving in October. I said the same thing about November, and we’re holding steady. A little slow, but steady.

I’m training about seven guys with their own trucks and crews to be Truck Buddies. Scheduling these guys adds a whole new dimension of complexity to the game, but it’s absolutely essential that I get some backup. I WILL take a vacation with the family in 2010.

I hired a marketing company to drive leads to my site. We’re having some technical issues, but I’m still optimistic that we’ll be able to work together. Basically, they want to move my site, which is more than just a flat page on the Internet, to some kind of WordPress platform. I thought that might be okay for a little while, but then realized that it would be fatally stupid to ditch all the systems and processes that make MTB work just so some Internet marketing guys can better track which leads they send my way.

On the home front:

Grace, my wife, is pregnant. She’s been fighting the puke fairy for several weeks now.

Joe, our son, is learning new words all the time. This morning he had what we think was an actual conversation with Grace. I kind of wish he’d stay this age forever, though. He’s heart-breakingly beautiful.

Obviously, there’s more. I really want to take some time out and write about it. This has been a trip, maaaaan. “This” being building MTB, of course. Maybe I’ll just have to talk about it in the book, which, you might have guessed, I’m also NOT writing.

But I plan to…oh yes…I plan to…

This time around we actually had a baby welcoming the news with some screaming. “I’m…so…happy…” I said through gritting teeth as Joseph shrieked. But I was, and I am. And Joseph seems to love his “Best Big Brother Ever” sweater.

Oy. Life is a he’ll of a ride, isn’t it?

Exhausted now. More soon. With pictures!

C.

“Xerxes,” she said.

“Oh, you liked that movie ‘The 300?’” I asked.

“That movie was awesome!” she said.

“Funny, I wouldn’t expect women to like that movie so much. My wife really likes it too. Every time it comes on she has to watch it.”

“Of COURSE women like it! I mean, come on–300 hot guys with awesome abs running around?!?”

I pondered this. Grace and I had talked about how wonderfully un-P.C. it is; how it’s oozing with powerful virtues like courage, determination and honor at all costs.

Later that night, comfortably ensconced in my couch’s ass groove, I turned to Grace and asked why she liked “300.” My customer today said it was because of all the hot guys with their hot abs.

I looked her right in the eye…and  she crumbled, giggling into my shoulder. “I AM SO BUSTED!”

That’s right you are, honey buns.

Of course, if she ever finds out why I watch “Starship Troopers” every time it comes on, I guess we’ll just call it even.

I am totally down with that. Not the thinking so much — we right-wing Christians generally don’t like our women to think — but the breeding I’m cool with.*

*New readers of this blog should be aware that I employ a lot of the lowest form of communication: sarcasm.

UPDATE: Of course, with new babies comes all that “baby talk,” and I’m not talking about infant communiques. I’m talking about how every adult conversation revolves around strollers, car seats, bottles, etc. The first time around, I found it fascinating — I had no idea there were so many camps, ideologies, etc. But now, I don’t think I can handle it.

Why this pet peeve right now? Because there’s a table of seven mothers, all with infants, outside the little coffee shop I’m working at right now. They were here when I got here two hours ago. They’ve been talking babies and “Mommy Gab” since then, and I see no indication that it’s anywhere near the end.

I’m getting a beer.

About two weeks ago I fixed a cabinet door with my leatherman. I showed little Joe what I was doing mostly to get him from getting into other things. He was fascinated, but I didn’t think much of it.

Today he wanted to play with the leatherman again. So, I gave it to him while I took off my shoes, but he took off immediately and ran with it to the now-fixed shelf. He put the leatherman to it and started turning it on a hinge.

Awesome.

I figured, heck, this is a teachable moment, so we fixed the bedroom doorknob, and he loved it. He even slotted the phillips head screwdiver into the screw like a pro.

These are the moments that make it all worth it.