THANKFUL FRIDAY

Or should I say LIGHT AT THE END OF A LONG DARK TUNNEL?

Michael received a COVID vaccine this week. The two of us have been scouring websites to get him on a list to be vaccinated and we were reaching a panic point. His school is resuming all in-person classes on the twenty second. This pandemic has been harder on him mentally because he was pretty sure that if he contracted the virus, he would die. The day after his vaccination, he started talking about living his life again. I’m still waiting, but happily waiting with the knowledge that Michael can relax a little. I’ve put my name on every list and maybe, hopefully, by April I will also have been vaccinated.

Then we’re going to party like it’s 1999.

Except with masks if around people who have not been vaccinated.

Lately, my weeks have started out just fine and dandy. Until Tuesdays. I don’t know what it is about Tuesday. Usually Monday is everyone’s arch nemesis, but mine is Tuesday. If I am home on Tuesdays, the day stretches out into the longest day. There are added minutes between regular minutes and even sticking to some sort of normalish routine does nothing to shorten the time. Dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing the bathroom and kitchen cabinets, an hour (sometimes more than an hour) on my yoga mat, walking the dog, answering work emails, troubleshooting the problems I can troubleshoot through remote desktop, eating. All of those things takes up seconds of the added minutes in between the minutes. If I am in the office on Tuesdays, I seem to be so piled under the mountain of samples I need to image for a particular project that by the time I head home, I cannot see and my right eye is twitching. Even then, I can be found at my home desk, remotely accessing the microscope to transfer data or on a workstation to process that data until bedtime. It is not uncommon to walk past my open computer at home and see fluorescent images of planaria flashing across my screen while it is being processed through a macro.

My friend Sarah who is dealing with work and virtual school (her littlest, most mighty one is in virtual kindergarten) confessed to me recently that Tuesdays were her hardest days too. I can remember when the dreaded week day was Wednesday. Wednesday, smacked down in the middle of the work week, was the day that was going to determine if you were going to finish the week victorious or battered and bruised. When you woke up on a Wednesday, you thought if you can just make it through this day, everything would be smooth sailing for the rest of the week. Well, for me, Tuesday is the new Wednesday and I have decided to full on embrace it. I know now that Tuesdays are the days where I need to be kinder to myself. Maybe even lower my expectations for that day. Tuesdays are days for setting firm limits on attempting to fill up all of the time or when to stop working.

Who knows if Tuesdays are going to remain being my hardest day once I return to an ‘in office’ every day work schedule. The lesson learned here is that there are going to be days of the week that challenge the fuck out of you. The key is to finding ways to make that challenge work in your favor. Claim it. Own it. Beat the day back with a chair and a whip, but also know when to cry “UNCLE!” and give yourself a rest.

There is always gratitude in lessons learned.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Vintage (edited)

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Last Friday, I took my wheezy self on a walk up to the Nelson. Along the way, I found a five dollar bill on the sidewalk! Then, when I reached the front of the Nelson, there was an antique car parked there. There were two people in the process of cleaning the car because they had photography plans of their own. I managed to capture a shot of the car in front of the Nelson with the owner’s out of sight. After I made my way around the Nelson and back into Theis Park, I witnessed a man carefully taking a vase filled with plastic roses out of a suitcase. Then he blew up a balloon. He placed one end of the bubble wand between his teeth and then set the balloon onto the bubble maker part of the wand. Then he placed the vase of plastic roses on top of the balloon. I snuck a picture of the man balancing all of these items. I heard the balloon pop as I walked away.

I woke up the next morning to the first day of Fall, which appeared to happen by just turning the dial directly to Fall. The temperature outside was crisp and cool. The heat and humidity of Summer completely erased. We ran our errands and then I handed a paper grocery bag to Michael only to watch it split open and dump it’s contents at the end of the drive. I stood there and watched as two bottles of kombucha spilled out onto the drive. The Cabbage asked “what is that?” “Expensive.” Michael replied in a tone that suggested he had given up on life. The beet flavored one is my favorite. Watching that one stain the driveway purply red made me want to cry. Later that evening, I swallowed a fish bone or at least I believed I swallowed a fish bone. I spent the rest of the night covertly asking google what to do if you swallow a fish bone and trying not to panic my way into the emergency room.

The kombucha was replaced and I no longer feel like there is a fish bone stuck in my throat. My doctor gave me a clean bill of health yesterday. I am ten pounds lighter then I was this time last year and a friend sent me a text offering up her spare ticket to see Andrew Bird with the Kansas City Symphony. Life is an all terrain bicycle ride. Some days you get to coast down the hill all day long and along the way you get to take in all the interesting stuff happening around you. Some days you’re just doing your best to peddle up the damn hill. I know that it is completely Pollyanna of me to say this, but I am grateful for the times I have to peddle up those hills. Even if I am cursing. Even if my thighs have burned up in flames. Even if I am moving so slowely up that hill, turtles pass me. Actually, you know what? The steeper the incline, the better. That just makes the downhill parts all the more sweet.

Now granted, busted kombucha bottles and swallowed fishbones are not very challenging moments in the grand scheme of things. It’s those really challenging moments that make me stronger so that these little things are nothing. In fact, I welcome those little challenges over the big ones any day. Any challenge gives me strength and opens me up to seeing things like a random guy balancing crap on a bubble wand held between his teeth.