Fix Your Thoughts

Before this weekend started, I was already mentally preparing myself for the work week ahead.  Vacation is looming...in less than 3 weeks I'll be in New England living it up with some family.  We'll be sightseeing, relaxing by the beach and just generally having a leisurely time.  Countdowns to vacations are almost impossible...you wait and wait and wait impatiently for the time to come, so much so that you flirt with neglecting the time you're currently living.  At least in my experience.

So, anyway, I was bummed about this upcoming week.  Four work days in a row, which was going to seem atrocious. Next week I'll only work 3 days with the 4th of July holiday smack in the middle of the week, and the week after that I'm only working 3 days because then we're leaving for vacation.  So this 4 day week seemed like a giant mountain to climb, at least as of this Friday night.

By today, I'm realizing how truly blessed and lucky I am to have these kinds of problems.  The "problem" of having to work 4 days in a row at a job that I love with people I love in order to get close to a vacation many people would be happy to go on.  Things like what transpired this weekend make me realize that, in the lottery of life, I somehow got very, very lucky.  I need to stop complaining and start loving everyday.  I think I tend to do that anyway...I'm a generally happy person, but I am certainly guilty of wishing time to pass more quickly or complaining about the things I should be happy about, like having a job.

Before I go any further, let me stress that everything and everyone is okay.  Saturday was a bit of a mess though, involving two separate 911 calls (one for a close family member, and one I made on behalf of something I saw.)  It was a stressful day filled with predetermined plans getting flipped upside down, lots of worry and anxiety, and some seriously sad moments.  Last night I slept horribly, dreaming about the incident where I made the 911 call.  I awoke with a back ache and tense muscles...I'm sure that in even my deepest moments of sleep last night, I was stressed out from the day.

And again I stress, everyone is okay.  It was just one of those cosmic messes of a day that come around every so often, and that actually make you look forward to a Monday.  My thoughts right now are "Back to the routine on Monday, what a relief from the chaos of the weekend."  I also feel positively silly for having been already exhausted with a week that hadn't even yet begun. 

In the middle of this week, I'll get to see one of my dearest friends, Meredith.  She recently moved to Texas with her family, and her visits home are such a joy and so much fun.  We're having dinner together on Wednesday night and I'm sure I'll be reminded of how lucky I am to have her in my life.

Meredith gave me a card for my birthday with a beautiful quotation from St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians on it. I love it so much that I keep the whole card on my fridge.  I thought it was appropriate for this blog post, and for this weekend:

"Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable.  Think about these things that are excellent and worthy of praise." 

I resolve to try to find the lovely and admirable qualities in each and everyday.  It won't be easy and it won't always happen, but I'll try.  Sad that it takes a weekend like this was to jolt you back to the simple truth of how lovely our world is.  And how lucky we are to be a part of it, at least for this brief stretch of time.

Looking forward to seeing you, Mere! :)