blurry with gratitude

I am once again blurry with gratitude, in tears twice today for youtube videos and book endings, out of work early for the rest of the week with resounding well-wishes and a ride through the snow --the SNOW-- to a lunch with my husband, and a sandwich on rye bread. Oh, how I love rye bread. And I still had time before S had to leave for his evening shift to take an accidental nap all curled up with him on the couch as we watched an original Star Trek episode. I caught maybe the first fifteen minutes before I was out cold, full belly, cuddly husband, deep couch.
I am so warm here, and so happy to be feeling all these rushes of life and thankfulness that were muted for nearly two years of sickness. I'm not sick anymore. My immune system, my nervous system, are back in as much alignment as I can hope to expect. I'm so markedly better, and maybe in some ways better than I was before, because of this added unsolicited gloss of wisdom and knowledge of boundary that I didn't have in the past. It's just wicked good, really, this living thing.

thankful

I think everything just may be perfect. The strength in my legs to walk up hills and run in circles and fit into pants from two years ago. Things full of love, like baked brie and bridal bouquets made of ferns and pine cones, and homemade Chinese food and board games. The husband who aces his nursing tests and aces his husband tests and who at this very moment is engrossed in making a big batch of chili while wearing surgical gloves. I have a comfortable home, albeit a small one. I have friends to make me laugh and to laugh with me, who shriek and run toward a playground against the wind chill and clamor and swing. I can share a cup of coffee and conversation that lasts for two hours. I have a mother who is overwhelmingly comforting to me and who can explain my differences by matching them up to her own. I have old friends and new friends and a book club and an adventure club and a yarn club and I live in a place where I can stand in the middle of a field for fifteen minutes watching a cloud of starlings hum from tree to tree overhead. I have podcasts like Ask Me Another and My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and Stuff You Should Know and Welcome to Nightvale to keep me fed, and a freezer full of actual foods to keep me actual fed. I have a job that I love, not despite things, because of them. I have exuberance running through my veins and on top of all of this, it is Thanksgiving week, and there is very little better I can imagine than getting to sit around a full, warm table full of my entire, inimitable family and sharing a purposeful, joyful meal. Also, having 2.5 days off of work. I LOVE this season, even counting my wind-burned cheeks, and I am beyond grateful for the steady, level head on my shoulders and the fact that I am whole, hale, and absolutely alive.

too much too soon

Today has been oh for the love of god why can I not just stop time to stay in bed longer or to pause a meeting of high emotions and pinched self-esteem to go by myself to an empty study room to growl at things. Or to get this cascade of work done alone, in quiet. But I got home from work to a bottle of wine from a friend and a nicely made bed my by husband and instead of combining the two, yet, I'm going to snort back in these doubts and wobbly tears and go to watch my sister in law perform in a play and tomorrow I'll start over.

I guess you'll say

It is a gloomy, overcast, balmy All Saints Day morning, and one of the construction workers at the old hospital/future administration building site is belting out, 'I've got sunshine on a cloudy day...' and as I walked past two others sang along and so did I.