After talking on the phone with a friend of mine last night, I got to thinking how adventurous his life had become since we last saw each other. That led to me thinking about how mundane and ordinary mine is. I'm pretty much scheduled up to my neck in activities, but nothing like seeing famous people on the street, having meetings with people in the public eye or traveling the world and experiencing other cultures.
But you know what? I'm happy! I'm really, really happy!
The last 12 days or so have been VERY difficult. All this business with my car, project breakdowns at work, dealing with the attention spans of kids on the football field, trying to coordinate schedules with all of humanity and the multiple crises in the house have made me want to stay in my basement, order a crapload of hot wings and turn on the NFL Network.
When I woke up, this thought entered my mind, "I'm out of peanut butter." Then I was in the shower thinking, "I'm out of peanut butter." I loaded the kids in the car and my brain said, "I'm out of peanut butter." After dropping the kids off at school, I actually said out loud, "I'm out of peanut butter." I continued to drive into work with that ridiculous thought repeating itself in my head, "I'm out of peanut butter, I'm out of peanut butter, I'm out of peanut butter." My only recourse was to stop and buy peanut butter. I got to work, made my morning oatmeal and sat down to check the emails that had come in from the night before. While eating my oatmeal, I noticed the jar of peanut butter on my desk and asked myself, "Now what?!?! You HAVE your *@#%ing peanut butter. Now what do you do?!?!"
"Nothing," answered a soft, comforting voice.
Today, I'm thankful that I have the means to buy my own jar of peanut butter and I'm thankful that - with everything going on in my world and the world around me - all I need today is a jar of creamy peanut butter to make me experience a few moments of pure joy.
Print | posted @ Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:46 AM