Tonight I only have the energy for simple gratitude. This is one of those “grateful I made it through” kind of days. Rainy, low energy days. Unlike yesterday, which could best be described as another wild ride on Mephistopheles the Mechanical Bull, today was comparatively calm and uneventful in a slow motion, mind numbing kind of way. Nothing bad happened, nothing good happened. In that sense it wasn’t a “terrible, horrible, no good, really bad day.” It simply was what it was. Mama said there’ll be days like this, and it was so.
I am grateful tonight for very simple things: like good friends whom you can call up on a moment’s notice and tell them everything that’s bothering you and have them say, “do you want me to make suggestions, or do you really need me to just listen?” And when I said, “Please start by listening, but I definitely do want to hear your thoughts,” she did just that. It was exactly what I needed in that moment and I was so grateful that she answered the phone.
I am grateful for my four-legged sidekick. Two years ago when I moved from California to the other side of the country, she was my company on that last, 600-mile leg of the trip (my brother accompanied us for the first 2100 miles.) Living with Honor is the first time in my life I haven’t lived with another human being. I’d gone from my parents house to college and graduate school with roommates. I had at least one and as many as five roommates over the next several years. After that I was married, had kids, got divorced, was a single parent, etc. So two years ago I was suddenly living on my own for the first time ever. Me and Honnie. I am grateful for her happy, easygoing, fun-loving, living in the moment, gentle friendliness. She greets me when I wake up and is always ecstatically happy when I get home from work in the evenings. She is never too tired to play ball, and doesn’t seem to get bothered when I am. On days like I had today (and even on days that ended like yesterday’s did, it’s nice to have my friend greet me at the door with unbounded enthusiasm. Even as I write about it, I smile.
My Friend Honor
Friends and family are the greatest blessings in my life. When other things are going haywire, they are the steadying force in my life. I am exceedingly grateful for their presence in my life and am gratified to know that the feeling is mutual, at least for some of them.
This hasn’t been the best day, but it by far hasn’t been my worst. On average, it hasn’t really been bad at all. The good thing is that I can go to bed knowing that I ended my day focused on gratitude for even the simplest blessings in my life and looking ahead to having a better day tomorrow. At the end of the day, what matters is that I did the best I could with where I was and what I was working with. Sometimes I do magic and sometimes I simply hold on for dear life as Mephisto whips this way and that trying to unseat me. Sometimes I land on my feet or neatly tuck and roll when Mephisto throws me, and other times I hit the wall and get knocked temporarily senseless. Either way, I manage to pull myself together and keep moving forward, as best I can. For all of these things, simple and otherwise, I can say that I am most exceedingly grateful. And so it is.
