A year later

The cohousing ride in the Earth Amusement Park has been rather ... ummm ... interesting in the last while.

There are times at which I look around me and bask in the conviviality of the company, the beauty and user-friendliness of our building, and so on.

But there are other moments at which I turn a corner, and I'm assailed with a piece of unwelcome news -- a construction delay or worse.

On a couple of occasions recently, I have felt the strain. But, for the most part, I have been pleasantly surprised by the generally calm approach I've managed to maintain. When I recall the Judy of a couple of years ago, I remember a person who would have been stressed out by developments like these. I believe the serenity that I feel much of the time is evidence of my growth, for which I'm grateful.

A year after buying into a cohousing community -- when the honeymoon definitely is over -- I still love cohousing. I appreciate many aspects of it -- the philosophy that underpins it, my fellow Pacific Gardeners, the sense of community, the land on which we have built our project, the design of our building, and my own apartment.

When I reflect on it, the past year has fulfilled my expectations in some ways but in many ways has been very different from the way I thought it would be. In some respects it has been far more challenging than I was prepared for it to be. Yet, paradoxically, it also has been far richer than I imagined it would be.

I find there is a lot of truth in my kids' expression, "It's all good."