Redemptions

or was the point always
to continue without a sign?
-Louise Gluck, "Matins"

I have all too recently realized my folly of letting things pass under my nose. Without me noticing them, without me giving them notice.

What a terrible, sad way of life it is--to wake up and go through the motions of one's day, to close one's eyes off to slumber without first looking at the stars and wishing on one, just because one has not wished on a star in ages, just because one has forgotten to, or ceased to believe in such things. Things like wishes, and stars, and blessings, and rainbows after rainy days. In even more intangible intangibles, like love, and faith, and hope. In believing that life is good, that there is much to be thankful for, despite and in spite of the daily toils, the unrealized dreams, the occasional hunger, the uninvited sadnesses.

But life doesn't cease to remind. And it has given me constant nudges until I learned to pay attention to things I have unintentionally taken for granted.

That there is a roof over my head, that I have a job that more than gets me through from one pay check to another, that I can buy the things I need and want, that I have a nose that lets me breathe, that there is air to breathe, at all--I am thankful. But more so, for the fact that I have a family who has never, ever abandoned me, come hell or high water, that I have friends who stay with me in good times and in bad, that there is grace that keeps on saving, over and over, and over again--for these I am grateful, happy to be alive.

May you have a blessed year ahead.