Pollyanna moment

<-- view from my hotel room - that's the Story Bridge

When I was young and gullible I did this weird thing called co-counselling. I won't bother telling you about it but one of the rituals was that you started each session by listing three good things that had happened that day. It's a very good habit. So here are three good things about today:

1. I have been upgraded in my hotel and am staying in a three storey, three bedroom, three bathroom, four balcony, spa and full kitchen penthouse. Gorgeous! The best part of that is that instead of spending the week alone, as I usually do, Lovergirl was here on the weekend and is coming back on Thursday night - she has appointments in Brisbane. There's no point having posh digs if you've no-one to swan about in them with.

2. I awoke really early and did an hour of yoga before I went to work. Felt fabulous the whole day. Why don't I do this every day?

3. I have nothing to do tonight so am having a luxurious evening in my penthouse with leftovers from last night's dinner - including wine!, a new video series I have discovered (Firefly - Joss Whedon's space western, an acquired taste I grant you) and all those lovely blogs I have to catch up on.

I've decided I've been taking the whole baby thing far too seriously. I'm even boring myself! So no more whinging. It'll happen or it won't, and I have no control over it. And far worse things happen to far nicer people - fate is random and has nothing to do with whether I am thinking positively enough, or am behaving well enough, or inviting the Universe in etc etc etc ad nauseum.

Today in my training class there was a a thin rangy woman,with a pierced eyebrow, a funky short haircut and stylish clothes. She was a dyke, I'm guessing, by her dress sense and body language. She was maybe in her early thirties. Friendly, charming, smart and quick-witted, laughing often. Direct grey eyes. Her lower face, neck, and arms were a mass of burnt scar tissue. She wore a long sleeved shirt but you could see that her upper arms were bone thin, as if the flesh had been melted off. When I'm training, I always want to make friends with the dykes, especially when I'm far from home for days and know no-one. And I wanted to know her story. We are so self-contained and reserved and polite all the time, big walls between us. Who are you? I wanted to ask. What stops you railing against the unfairness of the world, descending into bitterness and resentment? And, will you be my friend, in this strange town? (How much easier life was when I could just ask that) I noticed how, at the start of the two days, I was really aware of her scarring, but by the end it had almost disappeared. People we like become more attractive as we get to know them, and people we don't like become less so.

The Australia Institute, and many others, produced research into happiness - that we have an individual 'set point' of happiness. Give us an event - a million dollars , say, or a promotion we've had our heart set on, or that romance we've been waiting for - and our happiness may increase for a while; but within eighteen months we are back at our natural set point for happiness. We think of somethng else we really need in order to be 'truly happy', and return to the level of dissatisfaction we had before.

The point of all this is that I'm going to raise my set point and not make it dependent on my ability to reproduce. Enough, already.