There are quite a few things I find uplifting like today. They are all quiet things; the types of things that linger in the background, that you have to hone in on, that are not as obvious, that startle you when you finally pinpoint them. These are the things that are worth looking for because when you realize them, you can count it as an accomplishment, if that makes any kind of awkward sense at all. In fairness, much of my perspective has to do with how spectacularly low my mind set and mood were yesterday. I just woke up muddled, everything off kilter, looking and feeling wrong. But not just leaning sideways, more like leaning sideways into a vat of wet soil, fully submerging my head in the muck. When I spent some of my lunch hour crying in my car, I knew I simply had to withstand my 13 hour work day and get it all over with so I could sleep the sleep of the dead. That is exactly what happened.
And now it is today. Cloudy and glaring with that lingering background sun. The weather is going along quite nicely with my metaphor for the hidden, worthwhile things to appreciate. I'm on an even keel once again. I took the day off work to take my car in to get serviced for umpteenth time since December. The universe seems to know I don't owe anything more on the car and the universe, she'sa bitch in that she keeps a financial tally on a gigantic calculator, one of those old fashioned ones with the receipt paper roll. Only hers is infinite apparently. Either that or it has nothing to do with the universe and rather that the car is 8 years old. Regardless, I'd been driving around with my car sounding like an arthritic old man and, much like an arthritic old man, I was stubbornly refusing to admit I needed to get maintenance, in particular after so much had already been done to the damn old man car! I suppose I should be grateful that this trip only cost me under $100. So okay, I'll choose to be grateful. Plus, I got a day off for it.
Here's a side note: Right now I'm in my local coffee shop and they have music on. I came here for the background noise and to people watch and to sit upright as opposed to alternating watching useless television and falling asleep on my couch. Anyway, whenever I take a moment to reflect on something I'm writing or to reread what I've just typed it seems I always stop at an unfortunate song. Just now it was "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias, a song that is fine by Top 40 music standards but one that has forever been destroyed for me by Jimmy Fallon's impersonation of the singer, replete with an exaggeratedly large mole and an even more exaggerated Spanish accent. "You can take a'my bredth ehway." And also, now that I've taken the time to review that paragraph, what is now playing is a song I don't recognize but which contains the dreadful lyrics "Your arms are my castle." I get the sense that this could go on, hilariously, forever.
Anyway, what is uplifting about today other than the fact that it is not yesterday? For one, I'm not at work. I know I chose my profession and I more or less agreed to work where I currently work and no, I'm not a coal miner or anything even half as grim, but the notion that I didn't have to get up to go to either job today, when it hit me last night, well I credit that notion with how well I slept last night. I'm in the right state of mind at the moment to admit that the notion of not having to do the thing I have spent and will spend most of my life doing makes me feel at peace. I'm glad I didn't think about this yesterday.
There seems to be an abundance of creative types here. This shouldn't surprise me but strangely it does. I think I've been ensconced in my apartment too much. Much too much. Ever since my resolution two months ago to be here now, I've taken so much advantage of where I am and it is paying me back. If only in the opportunity to climb out of my shell and take a look around. This doesn't sound like much on paper but considering how warm and cozy my shell had become, it is no insignificant development. I think you all should also climb out of your shells and take a look around.
I'm now going to attempt to write a story. I need to catch this particular horse before the carousel does another turn because it has been awhile. Happy Friday!
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