Gratitude in One day at a time

On the whole I have a pretty good mental attitude. Shit goes down and at the time I can be annoyed/hurt/anxious but on the whole within 24 hours I tend to bounce back pretty well (let me stress that this does not in anyway include grief, which is a cruel unpredictable bitch, and still after four years, has the ability to hit me across the back of the knees at any opportunity).

So Wednesday I get a text message from my friend Susan that I travel with once a year. Her husband is a high flyer and they have been offered the opportunity to live in London for two years with his company. I'm pleased for her, it's a fantastic opportunity but (and you knew this was coming), it just kind of set something off in my head. I was working on something quite mindless at my desk, and my mind started to drift. I imagined what life would be like If M and I had moved back to the city, and he had taken the cancer research position. He would have been pulling in big bucks and we would probably have bought a house in the city (we had looked at one a month before he died). The fantasy was so vivid that I was almost shocked when I left work that he wasn't standing outside the office waiting to walk home with me. I made it home okay, and but as soon as I got inside the house the flood gates opened. It was so bad that the cats were just kind of sitting there looking at me with a"wtf? look, or maybe it was just their feed us look, they are quite similar...Then I had an epiphany that maybe I could move somewhere else. A new start somewhere. I enjoy my job but the pay is shit, and I could do better. Coupled with this feeling, I did not have one single activity planned for the weekend. Yes, I thought I will move to a new city, get a new job, and hopefully make some new friends.

Honestly, it was like I had sent a bat signal out into the universe. Within 10 minutes I got the following. Text from Donna: hey it's time for your next cooking lesson, how about dinner and some tips at mine Saturday night?. Email from Terese: Pizza and vino Sunday night? Oh and can you do ladies night at the local hardware store Wednesday? Phone call from Fiona: Thrift shopping and lunch Saturday? And biggest shock of all. Richard standing outside the office at 5.30 on Friday (I didn't think he even knew where it was). It was a beautiful early autumn night. "Let's go sit on a bar patio and drink corona's". So there you go. I'm not moving. I have a fantastic support network here. None of them are planners (as you can tell), but they are a darn fine group of people. and...I scored a very nice black and gray winter dress for 9 bucks at the thrift store, had a lovely brunch sitting in the sun with Fi and the 7yo, and tonight Donna and I baked bread, steamed mussels in a chilli and tomato broth and made chocolate molten puddings. Life is pretty good.

xx