Trying to Go Where I Look

Usually I relish in the extra hour this side of Daylight Savings Time provides. I don't feel like that's the case today. This weekend has been cold and difficult on more levels than I can count, and the end of it seems to be coming at a most undesirable crawl. I've been passing today in 2-3 hours intervals of sleep and awake. It's all I can seem to do. At least I managed to get my homework done somewhere in there. That's one less thing to worry about this week.

As my head continues a perfectly justifiable spiral I find myself pushing to look in a positive direction. It's slow in coming, but at least the effort is there. I'm not too far gone yet. I consider that a good thing.

So, rather than dwell on a bunch of things I'm not actually going to explain anyway, I'm going to share some happy thoughts from my trip to Houston.

I got to see the office of our JSC boss for the first time. I was very amused by the markers he had stuck to the wall with a little Post-It note near them that said "whiteboard". He'd been meaning to get one since he moved in; he just hadn't done it yet.

Being the troublemaker I am, I concluded that we needed to remedy this situation. "There's a plotter right outside," I said after he walked out. "We could easily make him one..."

And we did...

I had to laugh when one of the other guys visiting the office with us put a checkmark on the Post-It. He gets cool points for that one.

The next morning we realized we had forgotten to install a whiteboard for our boss at Marshall who has a desk in the same office for when he visits. We fixed that too.

When I returned to KSC the next Monday I discovered I wasn't the only one who had been playing whiteboards while I was away. I knew immediately where the picture had come from. It put all of my silly doodles on the artist's whiteboard to shame, but it was a wonderful surprise that made me smile on a very rough morning.

What I must remember in all of this is how many good things I still have floating around in my life. The stresses and frustrations pass and I have always believed that it is the good which wins out in the end. Now I just need to get there. Easier said than done, but at least I'm looking in the right direction...

Captured At:1925

"Now lay back," he said, "close your eyes if you want to. I want you to think of your favorite Thanksgiving..."

The voice seemed to disappear as I searched my brain for a Thanksgiving memory. I was slightly disturbed to discover that none came to me. In the most recent round of stresses, frustrations and trigger-induced headaches all I could draw were blanks or bad years. When I speak of the holidays I often talk of the many wonderful memories I have from being a child. I knew they had to be in there somewhere.

Finally my mind settled on one. I was told to picture the faces and hear the voices of the people who made it special; to use this memory to relax me and know that I could return to it any time I want. These instructions only made things hurt more.

When it came time for a choice the only Thanksgiving that found me - the one I focused on - was in 2004. There was no big turkey dinner that year. There was no noisy invasion of parades, football games or relatives in my ears. It was just me, alone all day in a newish apartment that seemed to be miraculously standing after the worst hurricane season I had ever seen, passing the day like any other.

As I sat in my living room that afternoon I could picture the homes along the east coast where my relatives would be gathering. I could envision the scenes within them so clearly I may as well have been a ghost in the doorway absorbing their joy at being together once again. In spite of this, I had resolved not to call anybody. If they really cared to, they could find me.

I should not have been surprised when they did, but I was. At the conclusion of the day I knew it was one of the best Thanksgivings I'd ever had. I knew without question - and without the stress and the noise and the overeating - that I was loved. I was more thankful for my family and friends in that year away than I ever seemed to be when I had them right there with me.

This year I've been passing up invitations for dinner again. I'm tired of "playing" the holidays. I hate how empty an act that is, especially given that I once loved this season like no other because of how it felt. The more I'm around it the more aware I am of what I've lost, and that becomes all I can see at a time which is supposed to be designated for counting blessings.

I have much to be thankful for this year and I know it. Most days I am overflowing with gratitude; my enthusiasm for the positives in my life is obvious to anyone who spends two minutes talking with me about them. The world I live in is not ideal in some ways, but on the whole I really am a pretty lucky girl. I just need to convince the rest of my head of that fact.

Captured At:2108