Sep 2
It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was satisfied by the smaller things in life. While his agents needed plenty of possessions to keep them occupied, and wouldn't stop complaining about what they didn't have, he was happy with the simple things.
As DiNozzo summed it up – boat, bourbon, basement. His boat kept him sane, gave him something to occupy his hours, gave him something to work towards, a visible target right in front of him. It made him smile when he ran his hand over a smooth rib. It gave him something to think about when he was in the line at the coffee shop – what did he need to do next? How could he improve on what he had already done?
Bourbon soothed him. Perhaps it wasn't ideal, using an alcoholic beverage to calm him down, but he knew his limits and despite whatever his team thought, didn't usually get through more than one mason jar a night. Bourbon reminded him that the past affected the present, that the present would affect the future. The buzz kept him from getting lost in the maelstrom of thoughts being alone could produce.
And his basement. Even without the boat, it was the room in his house he spent the most time in. It had no memories of his ex-wives, who had all rarely ventured into this domain. It had a handful of memories of Shannon and Kelly though, not enough to depress him but more than enough to make him smile as he remembered their time together. It was a place of solitude, somewhere he could block out the rest of the world.
Why would he ever need anything else?
