It’s 1:21 in the afternoon, and I’m blogging earlier than usual because I’m going out of town tonight to see a show and can only blog while exhausted so many nights in a row. I’m just saying, it takes its toll. This isn’t a complaint. I’m grateful that my life is such right now that I can stay up late to write, sleep in the next day, and basically be master of my own universe (schedule). My therapist says, “You’re a free man. You don’t have any dependents and have few people or things to be accountable to. Enjoy the hell out of it.”

As the Ella Fitzgerald song says, deed I do.

Since starting this blog over two years ago, a number of people have suggested–well–a number of things I could do differently with my life. You know how people love to give unsolicited advice. Specifically, they’ve said, “Why don’t you blog earlier in the day every day!” And whereas I adore getting the blog out of the way on days like today so I can flit and frolic about the town and not have to worry about writing, experience has taught me that I don’t do anything every day in the same way. Some days I blog early; some days I blog late. I’m okay with this. The sun and moon don’t rise and set at the same times every day and night. Variety is the spice of life. It’s never just one way and not the other.

Balance is required for living.

Having only been awake for an hour and a half, I haven’t been thinking about MUCH today, but I HAVE been thinking about gratitude and connection. (I’ll explain.) Last night I went to dinner with a friend who paid for our meal with a gift card from their father. “Tonight’s on him,” they said. “Because of his hard work and generosity, we get to sit, catch up, laugh, and enjoy each other’s company.” Isn’t this the perfect perspective? Even if you go out to dinner on your own dollar, at SOME POINT “your” money belonged to someone else who quite possible had to sweat, toil, and break their back in order to have it and be able to give it to you (so you could give it to someone else). Two days ago I bought a smoothie, but only because someone first bought a dance lesson from me and, before that, someone bought something from them. I could go on, but the fact is evident–we rest on each others shoulders.

We support one another.

As far as I can tell, we’re connected and interdependent whether we like it or not. We rely on friends and strangers to deliver our mail, make our clothes, service our appliances, produce our music. Somebody in China made the cup I’m currently drinking tea out of, and somebody else–somewhere–made the underwear (and shorts) I’m sitting in. Even if I pay for the things in my life, I can’t pick up a fork or a roll of toilet paper without in someway connecting to someone else. This is true even if I don’t care for the person who made or gave me the thing. Indeed, this laptop, on which I’ve written this blog that’s changed my life for the better, was a birthday present from my ex, who was such a shit and I wouldn’t have coffee with if you paid me to (although you never know what you’re going to do until you do it). And yet he gifted me a number of things that have been absolutely essential for my journey. So more and more I realize that you don’t have to like someone, something, or a situation in order to be grateful for it.

You can feel gratitude up close or from a distance.