Find Something To Celebrate

My best friend (the one I keep around because she knows way too much) said something pivotal to me in the wake of what experts in the field would coin as a Crappy Week.

"Find something to celebrate, " she said, as she handed me a home cooked meal complete with a chilled bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider.

I sighed as I realized  I would have to listen.

She was using her bossy voice.

And if you know my best friend, you know it's best not to get on her bad side.

So I went home.
And ate. 
Because I cannot celebrate anything on an empty stomach.

But I was unnerved.  I had been prepared to wallow in a sludge of well-deserved self-pity and then the little snot had to sprinkle her love and rainbows and puppy dogs all over my gloom. 
So.  Annoying.

And so, in-between shoving biscuits into my mouth at lightning speeds, I began a mental quest to find something, anything, that would replace the gray haze lingering over me with a downpour of joyful bliss.

It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.
I was struck with not one, but many things to Celebrate.  They weren't life-changing events.  They didn't include winning the lottery, or curing autism, or miraculously fitting into my little sister's jeans (God I hate that bitch).  They were more like tiny little bursts of "yay" that get trampled on when life gives overbearing doses of "Crap." 

But there is strength in numbers, and as the list grew, the dread and fear began to fade into the background, a faint whisper among the growing group of "yay's."

The goofy string of lights the husband put up on the headboard of our pine sleigh bed.

The quiet and unsolicited hug from a student whose trust was finally earned. 

The inappropriate pride at hearing monchichi trying to echo "shut up" after hearing it on tv. 

The generosity of a co-worker who has no underlying agenda.

The explosive laughter of friends as an impromptu game of Pictionary quickly went from G to X rated. 

The site of loads of laundry that someone else neatly folded and tucked into dresser drawers. 

The idea that maybe more christmas cards will have to be ordered, because the list of friends and family in our lives continues to swell at an alarming and wonderful rate.

The comment of a reader that is actually moved by something this writer has to say.

Small.
Sometimes microscopic.
Easily forgotten seconds from a larger, more noisy chunk of time.

Certainly nothing worth hiring a marching band over.
Baking a cake for.
Throwing multi-colored confetti because of.


Certainly nothing worth actually Celebrating.



Right?