A Grateful Heart

Yesterday morning was a rough one. Particularly Monday morning-ish, if you catch my drift.

My hair looked awful, my jeans didn't fit right, I stubbed my toe. Dealing with the chilly temps (it's all rainbow leaves! Hunter boots! hot chai and fuzzy socks! until your teeth are chattering and your soul gets sucked out of you... also, by "chilly temps" I'm talking 55 degrees but then again I never claimed I wasn't overdramatic) and having to go into the office after a perfect perfect weekend. My group chat with my friends looked something like this: life sucks. Mondays are awful. *middle finger emoji* Help me, I'm poor.

And then I kicked myself.

Because I'm one of the lucky ones. One of the luckiest ones.

Over the weekend, I saw an infographic that showed our world having lost an astronomical number of heartbeats in the last week, the aggregate of victims from Paris, Beirut, Japan, and more.

My friends and I also had a conversation about an acquaintance who lost his life over the summer due to a tragic freak accident.

Then there are those who are hungry, those without a home, those who are cold. Those struggling with their minds or identities. Those with no one to turn to, those feeling suffocated. Those who can't see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Me?

Well, I simply had a case of the Mondays. Mostly because sitting at a desk seemed so much less exciting than the weekend I had, with my best friend in town. We all piled up in bed and laughed until our stomachs hurt, and woke up to coffee and pastries and playful babies [uh... just so we're clear: not mine / ours]. We tailgated and saw old friends [and determined that were we ever to start a lifestyle brand, we'd like to be sponsored by Hot Cheetos], and ordered too many mouthwatering pizzas at dinner with new ones. We chatted for hours with mentors-turned-friends – several of them, actually – and wandered the streets of Hayes Valley. We were persistent about ice cream, even in the freezing cold, and then ordered steaming bowls of pho to warm us up.

The only reason Monday morning was so very Monday morning, was because the weekend was so very weekend.

How lucky am I to have the luxury of having that.

I will never be someone to discount a bad day because a bad day is a bad day is a bad day. But in light of recent events and with Thanksgiving on the horizon, I'd like to remind myself to always work on having a grateful heart.

My problems are easily ameliorated by treating myself to a huge breakfast and a cup bowl of latte the size of my face, or an evening spent in silky new sheets catching up on TV (my Monday night queue: Quantico --> Once Upon a Time --> The Royals --> Brooklyn Nine Nine) or an invigorating new project at work.

Other problems... aren't so easily overcome.

I won't go into how sad of a reality that is, but alas. It is.

How are you doing? How was your weekend? How was your Monday?