He had journeyed for years. He had beaten every villain and defied all the odds. He got a second chance. He got to go home.

And how did Odysseus feel about all this?

According to the famous Tennyson poem, he felt bored. He hungered for other journeys. He wanted more fame, more adventure, more mystery, more action. Perhaps there was something broken in him, some form of what we’d now call PTSD. Or maybe he really did think there was something better out there, better than Penelope and Telemachus and Ithaca. It’s like the sirens were calling him again.

What Odysseus could not see is what some of us—either in fleeting daydreams or day-to-day resentments—also cannot see: That we have it all right here. We have the treasure. This is the adventure. The rhythms of family life. The mystery and depths of this person we’ve married. The drama of our children’s lives. The adventures we can go on together.

We were right to pine for this. We were right to work for it, to risk for it, to hope for it. And now we have it. Can’t we see that? Can’t we see what a wonderful, amazing, unlikely thing this is? We have it! Be happy with it. Be here for it!

Everything that takes us away from it? It’s as dangerous as any siren.

P.S. Last year, my oldest (hey, it’s Ryan) became obsessed with Greek myths, mostly The Odyssey, and we’ve been reading Emily Wilson’s great translation together.

We also spent an alarming amount of hours listening to the Greeking Out podcast, a kid-friendly retelling of classic ancient Greek myths, and recently had host Kenny Curtis on the Daily Stoic Podcast (watch here; listen here).

There are also two great books, Greeking Out: Epic Retellings of Classic Greek Myths and Greeking Out Heroes and Olympians, both available at the Painted Porch.