Gratitude

I am just numb after seeing so many images of destruction and despair from Louisiana. I can't even begin to imagine the despair the residents of New Orleans must be feeling now.

I thought I'd do an exercise in gratitude by counting my blessings.

- Family: It may not be the typical Mexican family, but it works for us. For so long my family consisted of my mom, my sister, and me. But now I'm fortunate to include my niece, my 2 nephews, my brother-in-law (whom I used to despise but now he's like my own brother), fictive kin (my BIL's friend and his family), my tia (we're still not clear on how we're related, but we are)...and I'm thankful that I was able to get to know extended family in Mexico (again, not sure how we're related anymore) this past December.

- Friends: Of course there's The Groupie...lately I've been very sappy about how much they mean to me. Today I was cleaning up my old computer's files when I ran across a 409 page document comprised of old emails from the Groupie from 1995 to 1999. I need to get those printed out and put in a book. It's too bad I didn't save many emails from 1999 to 2003. It's a good thing our Yahoo site archives all the email since we first started using it 2 years ago. Anyway, I'm blessed with enduring friendships from high school, as well as more recent ones. My friend Maricar and I still keep in contact after working together at CHLA and going through the Internship Program. She left in 2001, but we still KIT. Another friend, Yojana, and I met in 1997 at LACC in a microbio class. She dropped the class and soon moved to Texas, but we've managed to keep in touch (mostly due to her efforts) and I even went to her wedding a couple of years ago.

While I'm on the subject, I might as well mention that there are 3 friendships that meant a lot to me that I've managed to lose. Katie, my freshman year roommate, and I became good friends. I went to her wedding too, but now she's MIA. I really miss her, but I hope whatever she's up to now brings her much happiness. Robert and I met at the USC Catholic Center in 1996. We were good buds and many mistook us for siblings (must have been the nose). I tried to go to his wedding, but lacking an actual invitation and apparently misunderstanding (I hope that's what it was) the time of the ceremony, that friendship fell by the wayside. And then Joe Mama. I don't know how or why, but I offended him in some terrible way that he never spoke to me again. It's a running gag now, whenever I see him at work I ask him if he's still mad at me. He just smiles and laughs it off, but doens't say anything. Maybe one of these days he'll forget he's angry at me and he'll just start shooting the shit.

So that last part was random, but I figured if I was talking about friendships I might as well discuss that. Anyway, I can tie it back into the whole gratitude thing by reminding myself of how lucky I was to have had those friendships, limited as they were. They served their purpose at the time I suppose, so for that I should be grateful.

- Work: OK, I may just be getting old and or malnourished, but work has been really tiring lately. The work itself isn't any different, just my reaction to it I suppose. I'm just fatigued. But, I'm VERY lucky to have a job I love and that provides me with the means to do the things I like to do. It's far better to have too much work than none at all. Now if we could just manager to pull off a decent Holiday Party sans bowling alley, that would be sweet.

- Love: Of course I have love in my life, but as the title of my blog insinuates, none of this love is of the Cupid kind. So why should I even bother being grateful for this? Good question. I've realized in the last few months that while the 2 major relationships of my life ended badly, they were quite lovely while they lasted and will always provide me with warm fuzzy memories, downright hysterical moments, and invaluable lessons. My mother still prays that someone will come into my life who will "honor and respect me as a human being and not as paycheck" (exactly how much money does my mom think I make that some schmuck would consider it a privilege to part me from it?!?). My prayers for that are over, but I do thank God I had the chance to have the love of good men for at least a while. Ooh, that last sentence sounds almost hedonistic. I'm running with it, after all, I'm establishing myself as a 21st Century Spinster. I really should trademark that.

So those are just a few of my blessings.