Big changes are coming to my life in 2015. After 5 years of working second shift in the lab, I am finally moving to day shift! Technically, I have already started working a few day shifts, but I will have no more second shifts at all starting January 3rd. It is something I have been longing for ever since I started working at the hospital. I am already finding that while it took me almost two whole years to get used to 2nd shift, after only one week I am already used to being a morning person again (hello 4am). While I am very tired lately and slightly bummed that I am not feeling too ambitious this year for Christmas stuff, I know that things will all settle out soon and I will be used to it again. The going back and forth between the two shifts is confusing my body a little right now.
Today my sister and I had a cookie-making day. Lots of laughs and lots of mess, as usual. When I took the dog out for a bathroom break I brought my camera out with us. I love cold and grey days. The starkness of it always struck me as beautiful somehow. While out tromping through the long grass by the train tracks I was suddenly stuck with how glad I was that my mom and sister lived in such a place. It isn't the country at all, not nearly as far out as I want to be, but there is more space and more fields than many other people have, especially when they are renting, like my mom and sister are.
Part of the reason I am thankful is also because, up in that last picture, behind those trees, is our old house. It is the house I lived for most of my life. It is the house we lost when my dad died. It is hard and it hurts, and I have not actually driven on that road in over two years and hope to never have to again, and I am glad I can't see the house, and when I am feeling beaten down and at my worst, my thoughts are, "I want to go home." Even though I am an adult and my dad is gone and nobody can ever go back in time, part of me will always think of that place and those days as "home." And I am thankful because even though we lost so much and have gone through a lot, I can sill look around and see how much I still have. It is so easy to get wrapped up in one's own hurt and forget that there are others out there that are hurting even worse. It doesn't take away your own pain, but I think it makes you so much more grateful for what you DO have.
It was but a moment, but it struck me greatly, and I am glad for what I do have today, in this life.
I try to take a page from Kira's book: no matter what, when you are with the pack and can run around outside, life is good.
