Gratitude

Gratitude

It was a fairly small bedroom, with a double bed taking up most of the room. The head of the bed rested against the only wall with a window, and there was just enough space on the right side of the bed for a small nightstand. At the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers with a large flatscreen on top. The walls and items of furniture were white, the carpet was grey and the bedding, a mix of blues, provided a splash of colour to the otherwise anaemic decor. Despite the size and lack of colour, it was a tranquil place, a perfectly quiet escape from the rest of the house and, by extension, the rest of the world.

I was thirty years-old at the time. My hair had begun to thin, and I wasn’t in shape anymore, compared to my younger self. Not overweight, just soft and tired. Working from home, I spent a lot of time hiding from work in that bedroom, contemplating becoming a writer, mostly day-dreaming. Perhaps that’s why it has become a safe place that I return to in my mind whenever life is too much.

I’m no longer thirty-years old, and I no longer live in the house by the sea, where the sea air came in through the bedroom window to fuel my daydreams and calm my mind. But that moment in time was captured and stored in my heart and my soul forever.

I wish there was a way to know that you're living through a moment before it passes, before it becomes another safe place to escape to when you need to escape. Good times don't present themselves until they've packed up and are ready to leave. Perhaps that’s what gratitude is all about: being grateful for the here and the now.