As usual I am going to bastardize this for my own purposes...no offense intended to all the workers today is celebrated to honor...
So my day is off to a laborious start, and it is 6:30 am.
So far, since I woke just 30 minutes ago, I have had to clean up cat diarrhea and barf. Did the normal mornings chores which felt extra today even though they really weren’t, it was just my irritation at the early morning involvement with excrement and vomit.
I finally retired back to bed, full cup of steaming, beautiful coffee in my hand to settle into cozy to write. Except I didn’t see that the cord to my computer was wrapped around my coffee cup...yep, I spilled it everywhere. All over the freshly washed sheets and duvet cover. All over the freshly vacuumed, mopped and polished floor. Anyone who knows me know how very much I hate having to redo something that I just did...so this came as an exponential feeling of that since I had to re-clean the floor, the bed, the sheets, the duvet, the nightstand...I will tell you that there was a great deal of swearing and pissedoffness. The cats really heard some shit this morning.
And I said, outloud, “I HATE THIS FUCKING MONDAY!”
And it, so far, has been laborious.
Which still pales in comparison to the reason we celebrate this day. I have not ever worked a 15 hour shift in a factory or coal mine. I have not been forced to work under dangerous and filthy conditions for little to no pay. I have not had to suffer true working hardship in the manner that others before me did. I just had to survive my quite banal morning chocked full of the inconveniences of everyday life.
I will fully admit that I did so with a matching attitude (matching to shit and vomit). And so might have gone the whole day but I have mad spiritual skills...
Well, I have been given mad spiritual skills and sometimes even practice them...
So I cleaned up the messes, put the duvet in the wash, made another cup of Joe and climbed back into bed...
Before I began doing my gratitude list and my inventories and writing, I took a moment to reflect on this holiday and all those who came before me, and suddenly my morning paled in comparison. I am fine. Spoiled but fine. I have an amazing life that will never rise above the fray of daily life inconveniences because that is just a human experience...that is just the way life goes, that is just life being lifey.
Suddenly all that I was so pissed off about moments earlier, was stuff that I was grateful for...I had the implements and tools to clean up the animal messes, I have the animals that bring me great joy and love every day, I was up earlier than usual so the extra time it took me to do all the not-so-fun stuff, didn’t really set me back at all on my schedule for the day. I have a washer and dryer in my home so I was able to get the linen clean up going without further ado. I had more coffee and creamer to prepare another cup. I do not have to work today because it is a holiday offered to celebrate the heroic struggles and efforts of all those workers who suffered and died due to poor working conditions and unfair pay schedules.
And with that minor change in attitude, everything that just happened became mine. The clean up, the literal shit and vomit, the coffee spilled everywhere. This is my life and I get to live it. It is mine. And I will never rise above the highest strata of being human.
So all that happened this morning became a source of gratitude, my angst and anger over the hard start to the day, dissipated with gratitude for all I have and am continually provided. As I move forward with my day, it will be with the knowledge and understanding that I get to have this day, free of work and filled with pleasure, because of all the others that suffered and labored before me.
So today, I honor them. Thank you for your service and sacrifice to make our world a better, more fair and safe place to live and work. And I said a silent prayer for those workers whose lives and working conditions are not ameliorated. The farm workers who live and work in conditions that are intolerable and often without complaint because to complain or make waves means a loss of pay which means their families go hungry and are in peril.
I sit in my somewhat disheveled bed, drinking hot coffee while being quite content with my life, being grateful for all I get to do, be, feel, work, live. And as usual, there is a debt of gratitude to all those that came before me.
And just like that the hardships of the morning vanished and I eased into my life with a new head and heart space which is light years away from how mornings like this used to go with me...
