I seldom wish for time to move more quickly, but boy am I ready to leave these past two weeks behind.
My friend Denise, who also seemed to be going through a rough time recently, sat down to write out all the things that were bothering her. I guess she was thinking that she would purge out all the negative energy- get it out of her mind- put it on paper and do away with it. But what she found is that instead of making her feel better, the exercise made her feel worse. So she flipped the page and started writing down things that made her feel happy (like the feeling of sunshine on your skin)and she immediately felt a weight lift. She probably doesn't even know that while she was telling me about her experience, I also felt a weight lift.
Then I saw a post on my friend Leah's blog about how the chaos of the world around us really focused her on the simple pleasures of her life- the "golden moments". The post was accompanied by gorgeous pictures of her children at play.
Okay, God, I hear you. Rather than apply my usual Southern Method of Coping ("Fiddle-ee-dee. I'll think about that tomorrow"), I will celebrate my abundant blessings. Pardon this sappy self indulgence, but this is, after all, my blog.
Five Things I Am Thankful For Always. No Matter How Mean and Red the World Seems.
ONE) A Charmed Childhood. How cliche is it to say that my mother is an amazing woman who raised my brother and me practically by herself while my father was at sea protecting ours and everyone else's family? Though my mother worries that I was too sheltered, what is wrong with looking back on a time when I was oblivious to tragedies like divorce, poverty, ignorance, hate, and neglect? There is plenty of time in life to witness those things.
TWO) Educational Opportunities. There has been more than one occasion in my life when I have looked around and wondered how I had managed to sneak in and mingle with such a gifted crowd of people. The first time was at Porter Gaud School in Charleston. My mother joked (though she wasn't laughing) that my high school education cost more than her college education. Now I'm sure that my friends get tired of hearing stories that start with, "Someone I went to high school with wrote a book" or "I was listening to NPR and they interviewed someone I knew in high school".
The next time it happened was at Harvard. Seriously, it blew my mind every day that I was really going to Harvard.
When I came to Ohio State for residency I studied anesthesia with some giants of the anesthesia world. I was fortunate to do cases with Dr. Jay Jacoby who went to Europe after WWII to learn about this new-fangled thing they were doing called 'intubation' from Sir Ivan Magill (we use an instrument called a Magill Forceps every day). I also studied with Dr. Joel Weaver, who has been training dentists in anesthesia since the 1970's and is widely recognized as the Yoda of the dental anesthesia world.
THREE) Travel. An upside of being in a Navy family was the opportunity to live in a lot of places. My dad was what is known as an East Coast Sailor. We did live in California when I was young, but we mostly lived up and down the east coast from Connecticut to Washington DC to Virginia Beach to Charleston. I have also lived in State College PA, Boston, Edinburgh Scotland, Iceland, and Ohio. The places I feel most at home are Charleston and Iceland- both are wild, naturally beautiful, exotic landscapes.
FOUR) A job I love. Honestly I look forward to going to work every morning. Sure there are tough days but most days are challenging and stimulating in a good way.
FIVE) A perfect child. You know how everyone thinks their child is perfect? (Sorry- that's a little inside joke).
It's impossible to continue to feel sorry for myself when I reflect on how lucky I am. I do recognize it and it keeps me afloat.
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