So I spent my entire day at the district office today.  The bulk of that time was spent in a vertical teaming meeting, and then I had a more stressful and exhausting meeting afterward for the online class I teach.  The dongle for my new Fitbit doesn’t seem to be working.  My computer and phone memories are too full, and my pictures won’t download properly to the cloud.  An ex-colleague has decided to be nasty and invade my space and time with her venom and its after-effects, creating extra work for me.

This day has sucked me dry.  And thus the especial need to identify the positives and express gratitude for them.

I read Steven Pressfield’s “Writing Wednesdays” post about villainy…or rather, about the second act of a novel or film belonging to the villain.  And then some ideas about the villain for my novel began to swirl.  And then some ideas about the villain(s) in my own life began to clarify.  And I smiled inside.

If there’s no villain, there’s no conflict.  If there’s no conflict, there’s no story.  I’d prefer to live a conflict-free life…but I prefer even more to have a good story.

And so I’ll drop these villains into my novel and some sort of justice will be served.

To further shift the balance, I announce my gratitude for…

• Supervisors who have my back.
• Students’ parents who are kind and gracious in their emails to me.
• Colleagues who are truly pleasures to collaborate with.
• Friends who take me out to dinner and pay for my wine.
• The edge of cool in the air these nights after the sun has gone down.
• Friends who talk to me on the phone, talk me off ledges, allow me to talk them off ledges.
• A particular friend who deftly reminded me that there is no shame in being emotionally wired the way I am (the family sap gene and all), and who helped me remember why I might have associated shame with that in the first place.
• And, as always, my dog who is happy to see me when I get home, even when I’m late.
• My bed, which will welcome me with open blankets in the not too distant future.

For these things and more, I am so grateful.