Appreciating what I  can in life seems best paired with not taking the shit I don’t appreciate at all personally. It is a decent arrangement, generally, resulting in considerable calm and contentment. This morning, I am appreciating sleep – the sleep I didn’t get last night – and I’m not taking at all personally that I didn’t get the sleep I needed, which, while I don’t appreciate that, wasn’t at all personal. Sometimes I can’t sleep through the goings on in the world, however local or remote, and sometimes I can’t sleep through what’s going on in my head. I really do enjoy deep restful quality sleep, though. 🙂

With regard to the sleep I did not get last night, it matters far more that I am awake now, alert, feeling merry, and more or less ready for the work day. With just Friday (and today) between me and the potential for sleeping in (on the weekend), this is doable. There’s no tragedy here, and barely any inconvenience. My lack of sleeping is not associated with anxiety or tinged with negative emotions. I am in a manageable, minimal, amount of pain. “My glass is more than half full”, meaning to say that I enjoyed the evening in the company of my Traveling Partner, and feel cared-for and well-loved. Even with the poor night’s sleep, the day begins well. I definitely appreciate that. 🙂

The snow melted away slowly in yesterday’s steady rain. The commute to work was treacherous and slick; the thin layer of water on all the accumulated ice was far more slippery than ice or snow alone ever could be. I skated awkwardly along the walking portions of my commute, appreciative of bus service that kept the walking portion shorter than usual, by far. As the day went on, the snow continued to melt. The journey home wasn’t especially treacherous, slippery, or complicated – just wet.

Coming home to real partnership is something I appreciate, too. My cardboard recycling had begun to pile up, bins were full after the holidays, and later an icy parking lot I could not safely cross on foot with my hands full prevented me handling things. I felt uncomfortable with the clutter, and it had begun to aggravate me. I arrived home to find that my Traveling Partner had taken care of it, and any number of other things: putting away clean dishes, hanging the closet door that so recently came loose unexpectedly in my hands, installing a replacement external hard-drive (he’d also taken time to locate as many of my old back up files and images archived on his network as he could identify, and had already put them on the new drive for me). My quality of life when I returned home was notably improved over when I departed for work in the morning. It’s lovely to be cared for. I appreciated, too, the sweet relief of connecting and sharing time in the same physical space after two weeks of being kept apart by circumstances, pain, or bad weather.

Small things that frustrate or annoy me may have been piling up over time… now, this morning, embracing a moment of appreciation for what is working, what is going well, and what I enjoy in my life, it’s hard to give any weight to small frustrations and inconveniences. It’s a nice change.

My thoughts turn to moving and I find myself wondering if my frustration with not yet finding a new place have been stalling other healthy processes; frustration is my kryptonite, and I try to be mindful of its sway over my thinking when it becomes prominent in my experience. The lease here runs out at the end of the month. The weather has been intensely crappy for house-hunting, or searching for a rental home closer to work, and there are so few hours in the day available for the purpose, at all. There is little time left. Do I sign a six month extension on the lease here? I don’t want to live here anymore. I want a place of my own – really mine, a home. I know so much more about what I want, and what I need, and what is enough… and I haven’t found it, yet. I’m also… not quite ready. I meant to be. The holiday season got in the way of being more prepared, and I made a practical decision about supporting my Traveling Partner’s goals ahead of my own, short-term. We do that for each other now and then, because… love. So… yeah. Six more months here now seems the pragmatic choice, the practical, feasible, doable decision with the least upheaval, for the time being. I would, in all honesty, prefer to move during the summer months, anyway. Less rain falling on paintings being exposed to weather, carried from residence to moving truck, from moving truck to residence. Thankfully, I have options – and an awareness of options. I make an appointment to sign the lease next Thursday, on a day I will be out of the office on other personal matters. I have another week to keep looking. Hell, I found Number 27 less than a week before I moved, back in May of 2015. 🙂

Today isn’t “perfect” – what ever is, really? It’s enough, though. Today is a good day to appreciate having enough. Being enough. Doing enough. I am content with sufficiency. Today that’s enough. 😀