Day 200: Grateful

When Cathy texted me “chocolate or vanilla?” two days ago, I had no idea.

When I saw two pie-looking things baking in the oven, I still had no idea.

It was only when I asked her, “What are you making?” and she said, “Uh, cake, for… uh, me….” and looked hella sketchy that I knew something was up. (Now I trust her even more knowing that she’s a terrible liar.)

Despite my best attempt to play it low-key, my roommates somehow found out about my birthday and surprised me yesterday with a vegan cake (yum!!!) and dope food from a vegan joint called True Food Kitchens (first time eating restaurant food in over 4 months wowz):

And then I experienced another first when we played and finished (!) a game of Monopoly over three hours. (I got wrecked — my housemates suddenly didn’t care that it was my birthday when it came to swindling me of my hard-earned ca$h money):

I’ll probably write a long post reflecting on this past year like I did on my last birthday, but for now, I just want to write about how grateful I feel.

I’m feel incredibly grateful for the wonderful people in my life: the dear housemates who have been lovely to live with these past several months; the far away homies who somehow knew it was my birthday despite me taking it off of Facebook and sent me emails and messages (if you didn’t and feel bad, please don’t because like I said, I generally keep my birthday under wraps so I don’t expect anyone to know); my sister who called and told me to stop working and treat myself; my parents who I suspect got my birthday wrong because they called and sent an email a day early but when I asked about it, they played it off really well so now I’m not sure; and all the people who I haven’t been in touch with in a while but have made their mark on my life nonetheless.

I feel grateful simply to exist. We end up taking this for granted so much that talking about it seems strange, but being conscious is pretty freaking weird and magical and I (and you, reading this!) get to experience it during our brief time on Earth. And with you here in my journal, we get to share this tiny slice of reality where we both exist and are connected by these black lines on a screen where bits of my conscious experience becomes compressed into language and you get to have it affect your conscious experience. This whole thing is bananas.

There’s a lot I want to write about — what feels important in life at this point in my life, the impact that meditation and spirituality has had in reshaping my orientation to myself, others, and the world, how I’d like to get my actions more in alignment with my deepest values, the societal conditioning that drives us to pursue things that wealth, attention, and status despite their unsatisfactoriness, and a whole host of other things — but I’m happy to just leave things here with the reflection on the perfection of right now, and every other now:

What, in this moment, is lacking?