I Have Become So Bitter

One of my favorite movie quotes ever is from a funeral scene, about a man who committed suicide and didn't leave a note. The preacher says, "Is not the satisfaction of being a good man among average men enough to sustain us?" or something close to that. I used to think that the satisfaction of being a good person was enough. In fact, I still firmly believe that the source of happiness is knowing that you are a good person. But now, I'm not so sure I am. I nitpick, and I judge. I have so little patience or tolerance. The neighbor guy across the street drag races and he spends whole afternoons revving the car up, I assume while working on it. Used to be, I'd close my door and turn up the TV and not care about the noise. It's the middle of the day and he has a right to his hobby. If I wanted absolute silence and solitude I should have moved to the country. And the guy is nice enough to wait until the afternoon rather than start at 8:00 in the morning. But now, I want to bomb his house. I have become bitter and bitchy lately, and I know why. It's a spiral. I want to move, to buy a house all our own in a city where a traffic jam doesn't mean a tractor. I want to have babies. I want Tom to get the local job he's been promising to get. I'm getting tired of waiting for our life together to start. I've always seen these first few years of our marriage as a short step. Someday I'll look back on them and they'll just be those rough times in the beginning when Tom was on the road. But I'm ready now for the rough times to be over with, thank you very much. Also, my novel isn't doing anything. I've stalled, and no amount of staring at a white screen seems to be helping, not that it would. Basically I don't feel productive, or useful. And I hate to go apply for a job and then have to leave in nine or ten months to have a baby. I plan to go to college when we move, to become a paralegal. I wait only because any classes I take here, in Illinois, won't be any good in Nebraska and no one here hires paralegals anyway.

So tell me, how do I get my satisfaction back?