Ordinary Things

I'm thankful for chance meetings with friends, sitting in the Mezz Bar, chatting an hour away, feeling all the poison of the soul drain away in the antidote of each other's company.

I'm thankful for the long hours spent in the library, sitting down at a desktop while people drift in and out like when I fast-forward a bit of a movie. And soon the fast-forwarding ends and it's time to go back and try to drag out each minute when I'm doing something I really like.

I'm amused when sales people come up to me trying to pitch some hair salon or other with an 85% discount on £350 because I look like the kind who would care that much about myself.

I laugh when I read in a journal about "genetic devices" and the author wonders on paper whether such an expression is admissible.

I'm thankful for ordinary days, routines, thankful for things I become used to. I'm thankful for familiar conversations, familiar faces, for care and concern which hide beneath familiar cliches:

"I see friends shaking hands, saying, 'how do you do? They're really saying, 'I, I love you..."

And even though I groan when I look at the sky o'mornings, I'm thankful for the snow that falls without fail every day, and I'm starting to notice minute differences in the way snow falls and can understand how the Eskimos can have more than a hundred different words for snow.

I'm glad for friends who come and go, because even after they go, they leave something behind in my soul and life is so much richer for having known them, even if only for that short period of time.

I'm thankful for friendships, and I'm thankful that it's always possible to pull up roots and root yourself in another place. I'm thankful for the closeness and warmth of friendships I have, and glad that none of us are afraid to give our all to the other, regardless of impending separation in the future.

I'm thankful for new people I meet, learning from them; knowing that every single person has something to give.

I am glad for sleep, that I can sink down in my bed and dream dreams, and know that even when dreams seem too good to be true, realities can be even better.

I am glad for stress, thankful that there are things I have to do, things to carry out; because I know that I am doing something with my life, and because I have a reason to wake up everyday. I am thankful for all these things, because when they get done I will heave a sigh of satisfaction and see the fruit of my labour.

I am glad for every single ordinary thing about the life I'm living. For when something we take for granted goes missing, we realise that its impact on our lives was actually extraordinary; because every ordinary thing that goes leaves an extraordinary sense of loss.

And I am thankful for being myself and thankful for this life I've been given to live.