My paperwork has paperwork

This was one of my favorite lines of another great book I just finished, Elsewhere. After looking at the author's website, I discovered that this is actually a quote from the movie Brazil. Do you ever feel like the paperwork of life is taking all of the fun out of it? And I don't just mean actual paper, in fact what is really driving me nuts right now are all the emails, the bills, the bank accounts. It makes me long for a time when the most stressful thing in life was getting my clothespin moved from the happy face to the sad face in Mrs. Walsh's kindergarten class.

I really feel like this book should be required reading. It made me realize the importance of relationships. Nothing else really matters when you think about it. All of my favorite memories involve another person or an animal. The interesting thing is that in Elsewhere, all of the relationships change constantly because everyone is growing younger rather than getting older. So if you die 10 years before your husband of the same age, when he gets there, you are 10 years younger than him. One of my favorite parts is when the narrator describes seeing two boys playing catch, one of whom is referring to the other as Dad.
We should not underestimate the power of relationships. I am happiest when the other people in my life are happy and I can become depressed in an instant if I think a friend or family member is mad at me. And when I really think about it, there wouldn't be any point in working if we didn't care about other people. The job I have wouldn't exist, and neither would the new job that my husband has. And what would we be working for? We work to pay for the things that keep our little family of three happy, healthy, and full. And yes, that includes paying bills. We wouldn't be very happy here in Austin right now if we didn't have air conditioning.

But sometimes it's hard to see the forest when you are looking at all the trees being wasted by the paperwork of life!