October 8, 2014

OK, the title that just emerged from my fingers is so cutesy and sweet that I almost just made myself a little sick.  But I love alliteration, and it is accurate in describing the day, and so therefore I shall keep it.

Today sucked.  Wait a minute–let me make that more accurate:  Today suuuuuuuuuucked.  I ran all over hill and dale, half-assed everything because I was spread too thin (a theme of this year), got a crappy email from a former coworker (and former friend) who was trying to make my job difficult and put her sh*t into my space, and then I had detention duty.  I’m still fighting illness, and it’s now manifesting as aches in my neck and shoulders.  Rant, rant, rant, bitch, bitch, bitch.

But that ranting bitching part is necessary.  It is needful to acknowledge the realities and crap of the day.  I can’t pretend them away.  I need to speak their names.

But I can’t stop there.  I need to turn the negative over on its ear, or at least put it off-kilter with an acknowledgement and name-speaking of the positives of the day, as well.

The full-length video recording of my grandmother’s funeral was posted today.  We weren’t entirely sure that it would be, as the promised live-stream never happened.  But it, in fact, was successfully recorded, and I am happy to be able to watch it again, and to let those who couldn’t attend the funeral watch it as well.  It was an honorable and beautiful send-off and memorialization of a beautiful and godly and beloved woman.  This is a blessing.

While my father returned today from his home state now that the funeral is done, my grandfather will be cared for 24/7 by our family, completely in-house and in-home.  This is a relief.  This, too, is a blessing.

I got to talk to some good friends today and cry and vent and tell them about my woes.  And I received comfort and support and righteous indignation and wise advice…oh, and a hug or two.  One friend even called me on the way home from her own wildly exhausting day because I was “on her heart: and she wanted to check in with me.  This, too, is a blessing.

In particular, my friend Tonia talked with me a lot today, talking me down off the ledge, talking me through, getting me to laugh, sharing her own triumphs and trials (ironically very back-to-back events for her today), and giving me good counsel.  (Oh, and she’s the source of that awesome phrase I used earlier about someone “putting their sh*t in my space.”)  She, too, is a blessing.

My dog was so wiggly wriggly giddy happy to see me when I finally got home today.  And she enthusiastically ate all of her dinner.  And she will sleep with me tonight and be adorable.  This, too, is a blessing.

I didn’t have much energy for cooking dinner, and I’m trying not to eat out (for both health and monetary reasons), and the good folks in my household all plied me with foodstuffs that sufficed for dinner and then some.  This, too, is a blessing.

The weather is a little cooler, the days a little shorter, the nights a little earlier.  The changing of the seasons brings me joy, stokes my creative cycles, turns me inward just a little.  We are in a good stretch of the year, and I think I can see the corner of Thanksgiving off in the distance.  And this, too, is a blessing.