Ten Things I’m Grateful for After a Broken Month

A month ago this minute, a nice ordinary day turned into a nightmare when I got hit by a car in the crosswalk. It’s been a hard hard month, but if I didn’t have such a lucky life, it would have been a lot harder.

1.     I’m grateful that I have family and friends to take care of me when I need it, particularly my best friend/ex-wife without whom I’m be sniveling and starving under a pile of dirty dishes.

2.      I’m grateful that I work in a neighborhood where people stop to help if they see you get hurt. I’m particularly grateful to the two Muslim men who called 911 and stayed with me until friends came, but also the friend-of-a-friend who went to get me water and ice, for my work friends who stayed with me until the ambulance came, and for the driver who stopped after he hit me.

3.      I’m grateful that I live in a beautiful neighborhood full of flowers and lightning bugs, where there are yard sales and art sales and neighbors who surprise me with chocolate bars and lavender poundcake, where I can sit outside reading or writing every morning until it gets too hot.

4.      I’m grateful for Orange Is the New Black giving me a chance to scream-sob about all of the things.

5.      I’m grateful for my rewatch of The West Wing and I’m grateful that my outlook is more The West Wing than House of Cards so that I could take to heart the shows of support from Democratic leaders (particularly John Lewis) in the horrible wake of Orlando.

6.      OH MY GOD I am grateful for Obamacare, without which a physical nightmare would have been (more of) a financial one as well.

7.      I’m grateful for my very loving cats. Sally always sits next to me and Frannie always sleeps by my face, assuring me I’m loved and safe.

8.      I’m grateful for my #365RainbowDays and for the fact that I’m well-versed in positive psychology, because I’ll need a lot of intentional joy to circumvent the depression and fear vying for attention in my brain.

9.      I’m grateful to the LGBTQ+ community both here and online—thank you for caring so much, fighting so hard, and being so beautiful.

10.  I’m grateful that I didn’t miss a day of tutoring yet, and that my other two jobs are as friendly and flexible as can be. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to lift textbooks again, but I’ll be so excited when that day comes.