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Advent

Today marked the beginning of my Advent and Advent calendar for this year, complete with presents and my mom falling face forward up the stairs to my room. Trust me, despite the fright in the moment of that final piece happening, it was all extremely delightful and quite festively fun (even the fall, while my mom was lying there, laughing on top of the pile of presents she had been carrying).

You see, firstly, I didn’t know my mom was coming over, and my phone signal was still off. So, when I heard a knock behind me, I genuinely thought it was a raccoon or possum doing some construction work in the attic (or the likes). But then, my bedroom door was opening – by the way, the door to my room is down a flight of halfback stairs, because my room is a converted attic – and I started to freak. out…..

“Hello?” I asked in both annoyance and trepidation. It was my mom. And yes, I had locked the door, as I always do – my fear was that I hadn’t locked it, and I was now about to be attacked. I heard her voice, relaxed, reminded her that I was tutoring, and I went back up the stairs. Just as I was finishing telling the student to log off and back on again to see about resetting her computer’s connection and sound, I looked back down the stairs to see my mother falling forward as she turned the corner to head up the second half of the stairs. She has similar stairs in her house, but there is no step on the turn at the midpoint. Hers are just half and half. Mine are four, then one on the half turn, then another ten in the last part. The light in my stairwell is minimal in the first place, and the baskets of presents she was carrying certainly didn’t give her much help in seeing that single turn step. But they did help her land more safely, fortunately. I rushed down carefully and, basically, lifted her up off the ground on my own, as she had almost no leverage to get herself back up, her arms still wrapped around the presents now beneath her chest.

Even as I lifted her up, we were both laughing. She had determined already that all was well and whole within her body still, and so we could not hold back. It was ridiculous and hilarious to the both of us.

Anyway, the whole unexpected arrival of my mother was due to a request I made of her weeks ago. Would she print out my Advent calendar for me to use this year? I had made one for my cousin years ago, and loved it. I wanted to use it again this year, but I didn’t want to risk seeing the days ahead of time by printing it all out for myself. I had wanted them to be a surprise as much as possible, but I wanted to be able to write down my responses, instead of just look at it on my phone, as I did last year. (Each day has a question/prompt of sorts to which I am requested to respond, you see.) So, here we are on the first day of December, which lines up with how I had created the calendar initially, as a 25-day Advent calendar. My mom has gone above and beyond, as is regularly her style when it comes to fun, creativity-related things – the exact reason I had asked her to do this for me in the first place – and come up with presents for each day, wrapped in Charlie Brown Christmas wrapping paper – the Advent calendar I made is based on A Charlie Brown Christmas – to go with each day’s paper prompt.

Today, I got a box of tea, from which I can have a cup every morning when I open the day’s card and present – again, the original calendars we made are referenced, as they were tea Advent calendars, with a different tea for each day – as well as a Christmas lights necklace and green and red jingle bell bracelets to give me extra festivity this month. Then, my mom proceeded to open up the box of tea and make us each some tea. She actually hung out with me in my room while we snuggled up to our cups in the cold morning air, and just hung out together. Oddly enough, those were two of the things on my list for the first day’s prompt, checked off unexpectedly just about as quickly as I had gotten them written down.

Then she went off to work, and I snuggled in my bed another few hours before going to work myself.

All-in-all, it was a beautiful start to my Advent and my Advent calendar for this year. I am extremely grateful, and feel a strong sense of love and care for me today (for which I also feel extremely grateful). Yesterday was an odd sort of reminder for Advent’s ideas for me, just perfectly timed. And I have a feeling that there is much value to be found for me in and through Advent this year. I look forward to it all with cautious and grateful optimism.

Grazie, World and God. Here we are. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Wow – impactful interactions

Today at the clothing store, I had an amazing exchange with a mother and daughter that lasted close to an hour. I helped others on and off throughout that time, but most of my time and efforts were spent either folding clothing or interacting with the two of them. While part of me wants to go into extreme detail with the whole event, for right now, a greater part of me wants simply to acknowledge that the interaction happened, and then dwell in the delight of it here in my own space, without sharing anything else about it at present.

And I am going to go with that part within me, because it feels true to what I want for myself right now.

Perhaps I will share more about it later, and perhaps not. Either way, you can know that it was a spectacular interaction for me, and it has me slowly thinking more and more about what might be next (or, even, later at some point) for me in my life. It was that amazing for me. : )

Post-a-day 2020

Turning insignificant into loved

I started working at a clothing store as a part-time job recently. And kind of ‘just because I wanted to do it’. I had never worked in retail before this, and I had often felt that I might be well-suited to being paid to organize and fold stuff (something I already do when I go into stores as a customer, anyway, but, of course, not for pay). So, I am giving it a go.

Walking to the store today to work, I had geared up for the pouring rain: Waterproof boots, a long raincoat, backpack waterproof cover, and an umbrella. The only thing not covered directly by waterproof material was my sweatpants – odd how that is singular yet not…. a single item of clothing, yet referenced as a plural for its two legs… yet we do not reference a shirt as plural for its two arms/sleeves…

Anyway, so, I am being very careful as I walk on the sidewalk. It is placed directly beside the road, with no buffer – genius, I know (meaning What idiotic brain fart planned this sidewalk?). Whenever I come up to a spot where there is a puddle in the road, I quickly run a large arc away from it, before joining back with the sidewalk, doing my best to avoid any possibility of being splashed by passing cars.

Just after I cross the train tracks, when there is nowhere to arc , and I am just running in a straight line to pass a puddle, a single car comes speeding up from behind me. There are no other cars around, and the car easily can move into the left lane and avoid hitting the massive puddle on the right lane… and the bright yellow individual who cannot be considered invisible right now.

The car does not move over. I notice just in time to jump forward and pull up my legs as best I can in front of me.

Almost my entire left pant leg, and some of my right, is suddenly soaked, completely through to my skin. My leg is actually dripping wet on the left.

I curse in an outraged yell, as I continue on my way, somehow embarrassed.

After setting everything down in the back at work, I change into my regular shoes, and head out to check in, eyes already beginning to burn. The moment she asks me how I’m doing – the standard check-in – I starts to cry. I cannot help myself.

I’m okay, but I’m not okay right now, I manage to say a couple times. I explain briefly what happened and that my pants are currently soaked through, and that, as I am now seeing with clarity, I am not only physically uncomfortable, but I am living in the experience of having been unworthy of being noticed. Insignificant out on the street, thus completely missed by the driver. That was my experience, no matter what logic told me, and I was still processing that experience and all the emotions that went with it.

She got it completely. Do I want to go change? she offers. I don’t have anything to change into, I reply, still in active tears.

“Okay, do you want to go pick out some pants?” I hesitate, considering how it doesn’t work for me to go buy something for myself right now.

“I’ll get you some pants,” she clarifies at my hesitation to respond. “Go pick something out from the sales rack, and come check back in with me, and I’ll get them for you. And then you can go change.”

And so I did. And she did. And I changed into dry, fancy, brand new pants. And the world was suddenly a lot easier to take in when I was no longer soaking wet and mentally preparing how to survive the next five hours as such, and somehow be in a good mood and help people and walk around with ease.

I checked back in with her once I was changed, expressed clear and direct gratitude for handling the situation so well – so immediately and so effectively – and for creating a space for me to clear things up for myself by removing the strong physical discomfort aspect of the situation. (Think how we are miserable and can’t function properly when we are super hungry, and then our brains suddenly work again after we’ve gotten the needed nutrition. Better yet, think about how a bull or horse will buck and buck like crazy, even after the cowboy is off its back, until that miserably tight burr strap is loosed off its hindquarters.) It has been a no-brainer for her, and she was glad to have been able to help clear it all up for me. After all – and she didn’t say this, but we both know it – I can serve the store and its customers best when I am at my best… and wet and miserable is certainly not my best. So, it was beneficial to the store for me to have the new pants, more so than just the cost of the pants, but for the cost of all the customers with whom I would come in contact the rest of the day.

I don’t know if she bought them herself, or if there is a budget for the store to be used for such odd, here-and-there occasions. And I’m okay with it either way. I am nonetheless grateful that this person considered such a solution, whatever the details of it, and made it happen. And immediately. It made a world of a difference for me, and I was and still am extremely grateful.

Plus, I actually really like the pants. They were comfy to wear, and they are a really pretty color. Thank you, K. You turned a terrible experience into a lovely and loving one. And I am grateful.

Post-a-day 2020

Tootsie: Roll Film

Okay, I watched the film “Tootsie” tonight. It was lovely. I already liked Dustin Hoffman a lot beforehand. Now, while watching and after seeing this film, I love his work even more. Definitely a fan over here. And, really, I was quite surprised – though not at all surprised, really, because my experience has always included things like this all throughout my life – that this was a film done in the early 80s. Several comments and many ideas presented in it are ones where countless people seem to struggle terribly still today. For me, these ‘difficult topics’ were always no-brainers, and super simple and easy topics. That’s the family into which I was born and by which I was raised. But, I think, most people were not born to such families, and so those traditional ‘difficult topics’ and still difficult for them, decades later, generations later.

Anyway, I highly recommend the film as a fun watch and a supremely delightful mini-adventure. Dorothy is a very believable character, and I often had to remind myself that, given the true circumstances, such and such scene is intended to be extremely awkward for Michael…, but I regularly forgot that Michael was there at all – he was that good and enrolling in the roll. Confused? Watch the film. 😉

P.S. I also love particularly Bill Murray’s earlier acting, and it was a fabulous surprise to see him in the opening scenes of the film! (Yay!) And I loved the photo shoot scene – it got me super excited about doing one of my own some day soon!

Post-a-day 2020

Brain waves: zero

Do you ever find yourself sitting down to do something, possibly late in the day or close to when planning to go to bed, and having no idea what on Earth you are supposed to be doing sitting there? Not because you don’t understand the process of the task, but because your brain has checked out and either is napping or has gone to bed for the night… without even fully forming the mental question of, ‘Why am I here?’, you have the sense of the question, the uncertainty and slight sense of being lost that go with it… and, rather than having various thoughts about why you might be here, your mind brainstorming the millions of possibilities as to why you have just set yourself here, your thoughts are just kind of off. The gasoline has run out, the power switch has been flipped – whatever the case, you find yourself sitting in front of something, with no idea as to why you are there, no thoughts to brainstorm your way through it, and no real understanding of what to do about the lack of knowing.

Well, whether you experience it or not, I most certainly do.

Post-a-day 2020

Español

And suddenly I am using Spanish again. I had a desire to reply in Spanish the other night to a coworker’s message – I was only guessing from context that she spoke Spanish, of course, but it was a highly supported guess – and went with it. And we have been doing Spanish ever since. Yippee!

Yes, it has genuinely been fun for me. I haven’t used Spanish for real in so long, it has been slow-coming. But it is already faster now than it was two hours ago, and then even faster than it was the other day to start. This is a part of me that has been in waiting for quite a while, I think. She is ready to live vibrantly again, and much more so than way back when when I lived in Spanish as a child.

Let’s go, woman. Vamos, chica. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

I am exhausted. And in a satisfied kind of way, which is really good for me right now. I accomplished a lot of work today, and for multiple types of work. In the newest work, I finally started to feel like I had my bearings (at last!), which is awesome. A question was asked of me; I either knew the answer or had something easily on my tongue in guidance for a solution. I learned a new skill that was invaluable for the job, and that solved a lot of stress I had been experiencing almost constantly with the work.

So, much improvement today, but work almost all day long. Tomorrow is likely to be quite similar, working all day for different work, but improving significantly with the newest one. Plus, I get breakfast tacos at the early morning one (must arrive at 7:00am for that one). Yumm!

I love breakfast tacos. I sent a text message once, in response to someone telling me that the other food was gone but that someone had just dropped off breakfast tacos, and that message has been quoted to me multiple times since then. I think the person found my use of young adult language hilariously tickling.

“Super cool! Thanks! I can hardly wait. Breakfast tacos are my jam 😂”

So, I’ll be jamming in the morning, it seems… makes me wish I had some Jams to wear for it… 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Election Day

I just want to say that, despite the qualms of the official leaders in this country, the fact that there is concern for rioting and people’s safety in the cities tonight, election night, suggests not that the elected leader is the real issue at hand, but that the people who cannot manage themselves are the issue. If people cannot be trusted to act appropriately, how can they expect anything better from anyone else in this culture and society?

I have always maintained that education – and more than mere math and science – real education is one of the most impactful and important things for a culture and society. Goodness, we could use some work on that right now and in the immediate future, for both children and adults.

This recent political arguing just seems so double-edged, so double-standard-y to me. That one could be forcefully attacked – and also constantly verbally attacked – for supporting one candidate over another just seems so unbelievably absurd to me… and yet it has happened over and over again, and from both sides.

We all know that change comes within, both on an individual and a group basis. So, perhaps, we would do better to focus our efforts within ourselves and within our immediate communities, than to be nasty and upset about the elected officials thousands of miles away.

Just an idea that has been remembering itself to me almost constantly, these past few years, and increasingly often these past few months and weeks.

Big siiiiggggghhhhhh

Post-a-day 2020

Next Step

Okay, training on my own (with mandatory videos) is complete! Now to do some in-person training and some solo study (because I want to do the latter, not because I have to do it).

I’m actually excited about the solo study that I get to start doing tomorrow. I really hope I start with it tomorrow. Things really do transform when we are interested, invested, and enrolled in them – I was rarely so excited about studying on my own for things in school… or even learning the information in the first place, at least for most of school… wow.

Crazy, huh?

Post-a-day 2020

Goodnight, goodnight

I am back home, and boy, does it feel good to be home.

Truly.

Thank you, God and World and Universe, for all of the love in my life, especially for the love in the form of my finding a home here, and especially tonight. Thank you all. 🙂

Now, to conch out and wake up super early for my (possibly) last test proctoring for the semester… to be followed by work training… for four plus hours on the computer… times two. Ugh… haha

Anyway, goodnight!

Post-a-day 2020