I spent today in a large arm-chair in the living room, watching Frasier episodes on my laptop. Yesterday it disgusted me to waste that much time, but today I embraced my poor little sicky-self and decided to give it one more day. Tomorrow, no more sick lady! My friend is having a birthday party and I intend to be there.
Anyway. I came up to my room about an hour ago with the intention of going to sleep, but upon getting into bed, I realized that I wasn't tired. Unfortunately my eyes hurt too much for reading, and I was sick of watching TV. So I pulled out my box. I keep a box under my desk - one of those largish decorative boxes meant to store photos or whatnot - that I've been putting all important documents and small items in for about two years. It's not quite what I would call a "joy box", as I've heard these things referred to sometimes, because in my box I also have things that make me sad. But that doesn't make them any less important. I guess it's more of a time capsule than anything. It holds the highlights of the past two years. And it has pictures of New York in sepia on it - so that makes it cool, too. Anyway, I was going through it and reading old notes from friends and family (birthday, graduation, happy-any-day...) and I began to feel very happy. I forget, sometimes, how much people love me and - perhaps more importantly - how much I love people. Suddenly I became aware of the song that was playing (Fox in the Snow by Belle and Sebastian) and the lyric that repeats several times at the end: "What else would you do? What else would you do?"
As I was lying here with all of these "highlights" around me - letters and photos and theater ticket stubs, my graduation diploma and the program from The Dining Room, the bulletin from my grandfather's funeral and the onesie that announced my niece's birth, as well as the ticket for any train, boat or plane ride I've ever been on - I found myself listening to the song's question and thinking, not much. All of these things have led me to be here - and sure, where I am now is not a perfect place. I mean my throat hurts horribly and I still have a bit of a fever, and I've spent two days in bed doing nothing, which kind of sucks.
But the world is still such a good place to be. I have a warm bed with a strangely affectionate (albeit sociopathic) cat, and my strand of multi-colored twinkle lights with fake holly is still draped around my window. I'm in a house with three people that I care about very much, and there are quite a few other people that I care about who live relatively close to me. I even have people that I care about clear across the world! I'm usually healthy and I have many opportunities to do the things that I love. I have a God who I can love and trust without fear or rejection or disappointment. The sun comes up in a few hours and I will be here to greet it.
And really, how awesome is that?
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