things to be thankful for

 

 

 At times, the situation feels so bleak that I want to reach out and share my anger with anyone in the way.

I’m tired of waking up pissed off, so,

there are things to be very thankful for, which I need to remember all the time.

I have a place to live, a pretty nice little place with a great view off it’s eighth floor balcony.  It hasn’t ever cost much to live here; it’s Public Housing, which limits rent to 30% of my gross earnings, but even more importantly, no income meant no rent; for several of the years I have lived here, there was no rent to pay.  Is no rent to pay, at the moment.  Thank God for that.

When I moved in here, I was disabled.  I am not now.

They did not tag me as a sex offender, having worked with young kids.  Druggie – not so bad.  It still SUCKS, but it’s not a life-long frame I have to live with.  It could be worse.

I have my black Caliber for another month.  I know that in the larger frame of things that me having a car (a nice one, as a matter of fact) is not all that important or meaningful, but to me, it’s very important.  I lived for 7 years without a car of my own, after I wrecked mine on the bridge, and I know I can live without wheels of my own, but it makes my life better in many ways, not the least of which is that I can get out to the Gorge.  I need beauty in my life.

I do have beauty in my life; I live here, in Portland, a beautiful setting in a beautiful region.  In only a few hours drive, I can see most anything – deserts, seascapes, river gorges, tall mountains, and lots of trees.  Crater Lake is about six hours away from here.  Beauty is all around me.

I take good pictures.  That’s good in the respect that I am nearly broke, and have no extra money for Christmas nick-nacks for friends and family, but I do have a new set of inks for my printer and a whole sheaf of premium 8×10 photo paper.  I can probably scrounge up a few bucks for dollar store frames for some of them; I have big envelopes for others.  I used to (and still do, kind of) feel that giving pictures away was, in a way, too easy – costless, but on the other hand, I DO take pretty good pictures every now and then, and people like that hand crafted sort of gift, and… well, I AM pretty broke, and I do take good pictures.

It’s good I have a unique gift for people.

I’m thankful for the stuff I have.  Yeah, shallow, I know, but my life is better with these things; it would be (and is – has been, anyway) bleaker without this computer to play with and use on the internet.  That TV. that DVD player.  Stuff, yeah, but.  Life is better with stuff.

I have K* in my life, still.  The postman brought me a package from Japan this morning filled with my favorite foods (dried squid – yumm!) and instant soups.  In that box was a small ceramic tiger, for "my" year, 2010, the Year of The Tiger.  I was born in ’62, The Year of The Tiger.  May it be so – that 2010 is "my" year.

Probably most significant (and larger than I can see, most of the time) is reuniting with my father’s side of the family.  The cousin who found me this summer called yesterday to firm up plans for Christmas and Christmas Eve.  I haven’t had a family Christmas since, technically, 1994.  We got divorced in the summer of 95, and I suppose it’s technically accurate to say I had family Christmases from 1984, when we got married, to 1994’s, but I haven’t had a Family Christmas since 1984, when I drove from Rhode Island, where we lived, to Southern California, for the last Family Christmas get together we went to.

There are plans to include me – my cousin’s wife said I have my own stocking above their fireplace.

There are good things in my life, and, looked at with the right perspective, life is good, things could be worse, and I’m pretty happy.

PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING

 

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