My gratefulness blog begins with things from last night, after I posted my blog and there were still parts of my day left to be grateful for!
I am grateful for the friend who responded to my gratefulness blog post, saying he liked it and was inspired to write his own gratefulness journal. Of course I can’t and shouldn’t write for the validation of others, but for my first blog post in more than half a year, it was nice to receive some sort of positive feedback!
I am grateful for the library that is open late and one of the few spaces in the world where I’ve felt able to be productive this year.
I am grateful for my sweet friend who spent the last of her dining points treating me to tea, even though it meant ordering only water for herself. Sacrificial love, even in the small things. I am grateful for the silent giggle fit we had in the library, which reminded me how good it is to have friends who can appreciate my silly humor in cartoon notes passed across the table. This moment in the silent library, wheezing over a silly illustration with two of my best friends whom I hadn’t seen in six days, was the most alive I’ve felt all week.
I am grateful for Johnny, the custodian I met who works the graveyard shift from 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. I had no idea that we had people who work day and night to keep our classrooms and workspaces clean. When I said good evening and thank you on my walk home from the library at 11:30 p.m., he offered to walk me across the street for my safety. How very kind!
This morning I was grateful for my vanilla latte, which woke me up after too little sleep (though I am grateful for 6.5 hours as that’s better than 5.5 hours or no hours at all!).
I am grateful for my coworkers who make my office hours fun. I am grateful for my job.
At first I was frustrated and disappointed in my first class today because for the first time in 8 weeks I did all the readings assigned in the syllabus, and showed up to class only to discover that there was one more reading listed only on Canvas. But then I accepted that the reading was minor, and realized I’d still understood the majority of the lecture for once. I am grateful that today’s assigned readings were short and that I was able to understand them with relative ease!
I am grateful that my second class was cancelled, as I was able to write my best friend a letter, take a nap, and make some progress on the book I was trying to finish for an upcoming paper.
I am grateful for my typewriter, which made writing this letter so much more fun than it already would have been had I handwritten it!
I am grateful for my last class of the day, where we were rewarded for a semester full of reading by watching the movie version of one of our books. I am grateful for my professor who has given me grace all semester for my tardiness when most sessions I had to rush over from West Campus carrying all my books and track gear for the day.
My hamstring is still hurting when I run, but I am thankful for one good set of the workout I started today. I am also grateful for the very smooth stationary bike I rode for 45 minutes afterward, and for the unprecedented opportunity to read while on the bike.
I am grateful for Sandra Cisneros, who wrote the masterpiece that is Caramelo. I am grateful for her poetic prose, for her narrative genius, for an author who comes from a different culture and yet whose writing made me feel so understood.
I am grateful that today I completed one of my new year’s resolutions, which was to read 21 books in 2021!
I am grateful for the avocados my roommate picked from her aunt’s backyard, which brought my dinner tonight to the next level.
I am grateful for the past $60 I spent on boba over the past few months, as my completed stamp card finally earned me a free beverage this evening to get me through my final Bible paper!
I am grateful for caffeine.
I am grateful to have so many things to be grateful for. I could keep on going for the rest of the night in this boba shop writing about things I am grateful for (and these are just things from today alone!). But I have to get myself to sleep at a decent hour tonight, and I have to get started on research for this paper that is due in two days. The deadline might stress me a little bit, but for once, I am grateful for the finiteness of time, which tells me that every semester must eventually end, and I won’t be sprinting to complete all these assignments anymore 10 days (or less) from now.
And I know that I will miss this season later on. I am trying not to take it for granted. I am grateful to have made it this far in college and track. This same week of December three years ago, I’d been going through one of my worst parts of college, and wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else, maybe even someone else, with different life circumstances and more freedom to pursue other options. I am grateful to be able to look at my past self and say, “Hey. You made it. I stayed. And it was good.” I am grateful for the past three years, where all the things that tormented me came to pass. I endured much, enjoyed much, and grew so much more than I could have ever imagined. A year ago today, I finished my last lecture of my first semester of college. This week I am in the final semester of my last full-time semester of college. So much has happened. So much has changed. And again, I am grateful, grateful, grateful.
Thank you for today, God. And thank you for yesterday. And all the days before.
This life is a gift, and the surprise of the story that unfolds is so much better, even than any in the 21 books I read this year. Because I actually lived it. And am living it. Ain’t that a thing!
Amen.
“Ten years from now, may we all look back and love who we were while hardly recognizing them.”
-Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz
The More the Marianer 