A small thing, for today. Which just makes sense, doesn't it? My days can't always be filled with moments of clover-eating, firefly-watching splendour. Some days will be humdrum. Some days will just be ... regular days.
Today was such a day. I worked. I tried very hard to greet everyone with a smile. But when that last worktime minute clicked by, boy, was I glad to march away. Stopped to get my watch fixed on the way home. And then ... I came home and had pizza. And then I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ate more pizza.
That was my day, more or less. So: when a day is as pleasantly uneventful as the one described above, where does one find the moment worthy of rejoicing?
Does one rejoice in the fact that the day itself was pleasantly uneventful, especially when one knows that over the course of a lifetime, there will be plenty of days that are anything but? Does one rejoice in the fact that one has a job, even a job one doesn't particularly GUSH over, and can contribute to the home front and feel at least somewhat like a productive member of society? Does one rejoice in the simple fact that one is alive on a gorgeous summer day, and healthy, and surrounded by loved ones? Yes. Absolutely.
Alternatively, one can rejoice over the fact that there's pizza to eat for dinner, and then proceed to eat far too much. Which is exactly what I did.
See -- a year ago, I was living in Edinburgh, trying fiendishly hard to pay my rent and my credit cards and my student loans. I paid my rent, and I paid my student loans. Sort of. And I paid my credit cards. Occasionally. Sometimes less than occasionally. Okay, so I was in trouble. Deep trouble. I carried the burden of my debt around like a stone. But I was surviving. I was eating. I was being responsible, as much as I could be, and trying to make sure that payments were at least being made at intervals.
And then I lost my dogwalking job, because my neighbour went out of work, and suddenly the money that I was spending on groceries disappeared.
I've talked about this before. Suffice to say, now, that in the span of a month and a half, I lost ten pounds, spent a total of £50 on groceries (around $75 Canadian dollars -- pretty slim for six weeks' worth of food) in that time, and found myself ready to cry at the smallest of things. It was rough. My roughest day centred around a "last supper" of frozen french fries and canned gravy -- the last items of food that I had in the house. At that point, I had no more money and no prospect of a paycheque for at least three weeks.
I sat at my table and ate, and then I cried, and went to bed hungry.
Of course, things got better. That particular story has the happiest of endings. And now, a year later, I live in a house with food everywhere. And so, tonight I rejoiced in the fact that I was full, and free of the stress that plagued every waking minute of my life a year ago.
Having said that, though, if given the chance to go back to Scotland, I'd go back in a flash. I'm sure that says all sorts of contradictory, ridiculous things about me. But ridiculous contradiction is the stuff that stories are made of, n'est-ce pas?
Today was such a day. I worked. I tried very hard to greet everyone with a smile. But when that last worktime minute clicked by, boy, was I glad to march away. Stopped to get my watch fixed on the way home. And then ... I came home and had pizza. And then I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ate more pizza.
That was my day, more or less. So: when a day is as pleasantly uneventful as the one described above, where does one find the moment worthy of rejoicing?
Does one rejoice in the fact that the day itself was pleasantly uneventful, especially when one knows that over the course of a lifetime, there will be plenty of days that are anything but? Does one rejoice in the fact that one has a job, even a job one doesn't particularly GUSH over, and can contribute to the home front and feel at least somewhat like a productive member of society? Does one rejoice in the simple fact that one is alive on a gorgeous summer day, and healthy, and surrounded by loved ones? Yes. Absolutely.
Alternatively, one can rejoice over the fact that there's pizza to eat for dinner, and then proceed to eat far too much. Which is exactly what I did.
See -- a year ago, I was living in Edinburgh, trying fiendishly hard to pay my rent and my credit cards and my student loans. I paid my rent, and I paid my student loans. Sort of. And I paid my credit cards. Occasionally. Sometimes less than occasionally. Okay, so I was in trouble. Deep trouble. I carried the burden of my debt around like a stone. But I was surviving. I was eating. I was being responsible, as much as I could be, and trying to make sure that payments were at least being made at intervals.
And then I lost my dogwalking job, because my neighbour went out of work, and suddenly the money that I was spending on groceries disappeared.
I've talked about this before. Suffice to say, now, that in the span of a month and a half, I lost ten pounds, spent a total of £50 on groceries (around $75 Canadian dollars -- pretty slim for six weeks' worth of food) in that time, and found myself ready to cry at the smallest of things. It was rough. My roughest day centred around a "last supper" of frozen french fries and canned gravy -- the last items of food that I had in the house. At that point, I had no more money and no prospect of a paycheque for at least three weeks.
I sat at my table and ate, and then I cried, and went to bed hungry.
Of course, things got better. That particular story has the happiest of endings. And now, a year later, I live in a house with food everywhere. And so, tonight I rejoiced in the fact that I was full, and free of the stress that plagued every waking minute of my life a year ago.
Having said that, though, if given the chance to go back to Scotland, I'd go back in a flash. I'm sure that says all sorts of contradictory, ridiculous things about me. But ridiculous contradiction is the stuff that stories are made of, n'est-ce pas?
No comments:
Post a Comment