Gratitude and two days.

I've never spent much time pondering the glass half full/glass half empty conundrum. I guess I've just always been stoked to have something in my glass to drink! The last couple days has been a lesson in looking at things half full. When I heard that a trip I had anxiously been awaiting was going to be cut short I was more disappointed than I had expected. I didn't know how much I wanted my glass to be totally full. I thought I was pretty mellow. The fact of the matter is when I realized my proverbial cup would not be full I freaked out, focusing on the time lost instead of the time that was still there. This morning, like most, I woke with a little more clarity. I was going to spend two full days in a city that I love with one of my favourite people in the world. Two Whole Days. That would be two more days that I would get if I didn't go. Two more days that we would otherwise get. I laughed at myself a little this morning. Sometimes gratitude evades us when we are attached to what we think we need. 

Rocky Mountain High.

It doesn't happen often here but lately I can't help it.  I feel restless, like a prairie wind through the grass, whipping this way and that, gaining speed, momentum, over the flattened land. I find I long for cerulean skies and golden fields and the long straight black strip of road that connects it all. My foot aches for the accelerator and endless miles, my hair to be whipped back, my skin to be touched by sun I haven't seen in days. A warmth that is generated not just from above but also radiated from the fertile soil beneath. I miss home. A prairie girl at heart and always I have done a decent job of appreciating what I've got (which is so much) and trying to let go of the past (which can be so rich). There are just days, muscle memory and migration, when my joints move to draw me home. This cold, grey, city where people have to compete, tooth and nail, for each spec of land, for each dollar earned, for every job, for every spot on the bus or in traffic. It is understandable with this that people here don't make friends easily, don't trust, smile at others, extend a hand, move out of the way for others. People don't say please or thank you. It is understandable when I can imagine each individual is just that, someone who is in perpetual competition, everyone has to be out for themselves. I try to break this habit, smile at strangers, hold doors, thank people, I try to give a little so people might be reminded what that feels like. But that's where I come from. I am so incredibly fortunate to come from the province of plenty, where jobs are abundant, gas is cheap, homes affordable, roads are wide, the city is built for escape instead of containment. Somedays it just gets to me. Somedays when the city is too aloof and the pull of wheat fields, foot hills, and rocky mountains gets too strong. Well, those are days like today.

Look for the second right answer.

"Look for the second right answer." I have come across this phrase a number of times in the last few months and for what ever reason it has stuck. The best thing may not be what you always thought it was, it may be what you get when your are not looking or when you are forced to think differently, live differently, when you are far outside your comfort zone. That is usually where greatness happens with me. The second right answer was the moment I quit the job at the company I thought I would work at forever and had to decided right then and there what my alternate universe could look like. It was many other interesting and amazing decisions I have made since. I love the second right answer because though it is often drastically different than the first right answer it is also usually the source of so much more adventure, personal growth, and snort-through-your-nose laughter. 

Competency is Sexy.

Change. It is perpetual. It is everything we do. Constant flux. I find this somewhat unnerving still, even after all these years of training myself to go with the flow, to be open to new opportunities, to see change as just another wonderful possibility. In three weeks I have gone from jeans, Toms, and hoodies to heels, dress pants, and when I remember, blazers. I have traded in class schedules and group meetings for databases and client meetings. I have traded lunch on my lap in a breakout room to .... well lunch on my lap outside. To say the first couple days in the life of a corporate intern were exhausting would be an understatement. For my sponge like brain and eagerness to please it was exciting to the point where I wore my self out by about 3pm only to be at my desk until 5:30. Today I felt like I hit my stride a little. The processes and nuances are becoming more clear and intuitive and the intelligence, kindness, and sense of humour of my coworkers continues to exceed my very high expectations. My take away from all this is not that change is good or bad it is simply this: There is a very high likelihood that each time we try, every time we grow, every subtle change makes us better. It is my experience, recent and otherwise, that we do not get worse at things (ok maybe athletics and my ability to not be hungover) but improve and grow as we build on previous moments. Every experience builds competency, and as a dear friend of mine once told me "Competency is sexy".

Big Dreams.

Every time it happens it's different. Comes from a different left field, hits in a different part of the chest, feels like a different ton of bricks. Sometimes I am full of words and can't keep them inside but this time, like some other times, I am at a loss.

Young life taken is never easy to understand and the more often it happens the more confusing it gets. The first time it is all new and wild and the hurt is deep. Each time after there are other questions. Other hurts. This time I sit and wonder, not yet on the brink of tears but numbed by the news, what is the lesson from this? Did we need another reminder of the fragility of life? Of the constant presence of mortally? Did we need a reason to tell those around us we love them, just because we do, or can we learn to do what makes us happy now instead of putting it off?

I am not sure those are even the right questions. I think all I can, all any of us can do, in these moments is be sad if and when we need to and to try to remember fondly the good times we had with those we lost. That and listen to some country songs and have a drink in their honour.