I should be in bed. I should be asleep. Instead, I’m listening to jazz music and writing here. (Oh, and i have a receipt to print out for tomorrow… but again, I’m here.)
I tried to look at my blog dashboard Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. I just looked, I didn’t type anything up. And yet there were a ton of things to write about. I just didn’t have the energy nor the time. Blame it on work. (I know, right? Such a distraction!)
But tonight I vowed I would write, before all the inspiration and thoughts disappear into the ethernet and I am rendered stumped for a blog post again.
It was another long day Thursday, and I was looking forward to a break at the end of the day but everything went awry at the last minute. So all thoughts of leaving early and taking a leisurely stroll through the line of shops in Bryant Park had to be set aside to take care of some last minute tech glitches. Problem was solved soon enough, but it was too late to do anything more beyond wait for the bus and get on it.
All bundled up with extra layers of clothing, I was ready to brave the cold. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everybody seems to think the snow was here in Manhattan, but it was way upstate. Still, we’re all grateful for the concern. (My brother, Abril, actually sent me a message asking how we were doing against the cold front. Cold, I told him.. then I saw the snow up in Buffalo and figured that’s what the rest of the world is seeing. That’s practically like Bicol and Manila, so no, we’re cold but we’re not covered with snow.)
All week long, I’ve been hit by little surprises that made me smile. From a note from BFF Donna in Australia, to a very cheerful greeting from my “half boss”, the President of our Asian operations (a Brit who is based in Oz) telling me something looks different when he saw me — and although he couldn’t place it, he said it looked good. Two things, I told him — I’ve lost weight, and the hair is a lighter color. (He’s not quite my boss because I only help him when he’s here in New York — the real boss in my world is actually a Chief something something as I describe him.) BFF Fe showered me with her wisdom all week long — the universe has spoken.
A friend who I hadn’t heard from for two weeks suddenly called just to say hi. We were hoping to catch up but missed each other due to meetings. Another who usually wouldn’t e-mail has e-mailed twice. (Mental telepathy?) And it turns out my courtyard neighbor is close cousins with a friend from my college days — and he has visited twice and I have never even seen him. I pinged him on Messenger this morning while his cousin-in-law was seated next to me on the bus, and he was also so blown away by the fact that I actually know one of his closest relatives.
Little things that made me smile, and now as I look back on it, I find myself smiling an even bigger smile remembering. That’s what happy thoughts do to us — they provide us the wall to lean on when we feel spent, defeated or on the verge of breaking down. Or what give us a dose of optimism when we are buried in work or other worries. Those little surprises that we would otherwise ignore individually, when summed up together gives us a better picture of how things aren’t all that bad, even when we feel like the cold is sapping us of much needed energy and optimism.
Take them for what they are instead of over thinking them — and you might yet be pleasantly surprised to see the week hasn’t been that bad at all.
Pinay New Yorker 