Wow.

I had a similar experience a few weeks back. A friend was visiting from out of town, someone I don't see very often, and he was staying at my place. He's job hunting, trying to move from a job he despises in a part of the country he doesn't like back to DC. The job hunt has been pretty rocky.

We were sitting in the living room, talking about what the next few weeks looked like. I'd told him that K and I are doing Nanowrimo, the novel writing project, during November; that I had basically cleared my calendar for it. There was this long pause, and he looked at me and said, "You do realize, I hope, what an enviable life you have? A job where at least one person values your skills and talents, a house that allows you to live surrounded by books, the ability to indulge yourself by taking an entire month to do nothing but write, a kid to do it with you?" and all I could do was sit there and gape at him. Because yes, I can see that it's an enviable life; but often all I see when I look at it is the flaws. It was pretty jarring to have it laid right out like that.