The other day an old friend whose young husband recently passed away posted something on Facebook that said, “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”  Because of the tragedy she’s living through, along with so many other tragedies everywhere I look, I have been sad and scared for the past month or so.  It’s been a very unfamiliar feeling for me to see the world through such pessimistic, hopeless eyes.  Following a fender bender, driving across town felt like I was actually playing one of those video games where I can’t quite turn or stop the car fast enough.  I’ve also struggled with Arkansas allergies whose powers of destruction cannot be overstated, and don’t get me started on what I’ve been through with Blue Cross Blue Shield over the past six weeks.  Today I woke up feeling a little better, partly because I have an incredible steroid pumping through my weak body, but also because I’m slowly having a George Bailey moment, finally seeing the delight in the broken old stairway bannister of my behind-the-scenes life.

The other night four of our very favorite people sat with us in the backyard eating hot dogs and zucchini and swatting mosquitos.  Both couples are in the process of expensive home renovations, and so before long the conversation turned to cabinet colors and sink faucets.  Troy and I rent a beautiful home that is just right for us, but we don’t have extra money to change it even if we wanted to.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night terrified about our future status as elderly homeless people, and the only way to get me back to sleep is to imagine our nine year old son growing up to be a rich computer programmer that lets us live with him.  As we were listening to the excited voices around us, I glanced over at my sweet husband who spends his days playing guitar and telling stories to elementary school children, and I felt exactly like my favorite movie hero.  There was my Mary Bailey, so patient with our humble existence as he eats one too many hotdogs.  An hour later we were standing in the front yard with our arms around each other, waving at our dear friends as they drove away in their matching Priuses.  I pantomimed kicking the tire of our Honda Civic as my husband said, “Hee-haw, Sam, how ARE you?”

This is our secret code for feeling a little left out of the fun.

Lately I’ve felt poor and sick and scared, looking at pictures of fancy vacations and world travel and wondering when it’s our turn to go to the airport and pose by the ocean.  When do we get to buy a house and tear it apart and make it beautiful again?  When do we get dental insurance like everyone else?  If you Google the phrase “feeling sorry for yourself” you will see several pictures of me looking pathetic.

After our friends drove away we went into our little house that looks a bit like a fairytale cottage.  I made my way up the stairs to convince Huck it was time to put down his Harry Potter book and go to sleep.  He was full of stories about what he’d just read and for a minute there I watched his perfect little face with the eyebrow scar and the freckles and those crazy kid-teeth as my little Zuzu went on and on and on about his magical book.

And that’s when I really felt like George Bailey, the one there at the end of the movie that looks at his family and his drafty old house and remembers he’s the richest man in town.  Even with the sinus headaches and the never-ending construction going on behind your house and the hours you’ve wasted on the phone with the insurance company, it’s mostly a wonderful life.  Even with friends and mother in-laws losing their most important person and celebrities committing suicide and countries destroying each other and guns and cancer and Alzheimer’s and terrible news after terrible news, it will be a wonderful life again.  Friends will come barreling through your door at just the right moment reminding you what it’s all about, inviting you in to their new kitchen, always offering car rides and childcare and much needed conversation.  The George Bailey ending that has made all my Decembers complete needs the lost opportunities, the heartbreak, the envy, the bad guy, the missing money, the death.  You can’t fall asleep or fast forward and get the same result as when you stick it out and watch every single minute right down to the closing credits.  Just like the highlight reel can’t exist without the behind the scenes sadness.

I hope I can remember this for the next bad day.  And I hope all my friends will give me thousands of dollars someday, too.