10/23

i'm thankful that over the past couple of months, the doors (there are two, which open into the bedroom) had gotten increasingly harder to open and close, such that, every time you wanted to open the door, you would have to yank as hard as you can, sometimes several times, to pull it open with a loud reverberating sound, and then to close the door (which you would need to do to keep the dog from getting in), you would need to slam it, sometimes several times. i'm thankful that sometimes it might be a little easier or harder and was never a problem, per se, but it was an unpleasant thing, since we have so many emotional associations with jerking and slamming doors and so to force your body into those positions all the time felt particularly bad. i'm thankful that yesterday afternoon, mildly enraged about the door, i said "this door is going to drive me insane," which was not a productive comment.

i'm thankful that this morning, d woke up earlier than normal because of her cold, and so she was standing beside me when i went to the door to open it and take it out miso and get breakfast ready and the door just would not open. i yanked and yanked on one knob, then the other, as hard as i could, and it would not open. i asked her to try and she tried several times and the door would not open. i rattled the knob and tried to shift the door vertically, and it would not open, not even a little bit. i'm thankful to have started to laugh and to have thought that perhaps we were just going to be trapped in our bedroom. i'm thankful to have flashed back to a temporary rental we lived in when we first moved to virginia when i was in sixth grade that we got locked out of and that we went in the backyard of so my dad could boost me (or my brother? i can't remember, but i think it was me) through a window into the house so i could go unlock the door and let everyone in. i'm thankful to have thought about punching through the screen of the window and climbing out over the hedge.

i'm thankful, though, that eventually one of the pulls finally dislodged the door. i'm thankful that i was going to go on with my day, and, as i had accepted the wrenching and slamming, just accept that the new normal of our lives was going to be being trapped inside our bedroom occasionally, and i'm thankful that while walking down the hallway to the kitchen, i realized that it was too far and i asked deborah for the bag of tools she keeps in her closet and got a phillip's head screwdriver and tightened two screws in the top of the doorjamb, one of which was stripped and so couldn't be tightened that much, and suddenly i could open the doors quite easily, and went out to show d. i'm thankful that though today was a day where i was sad in the afternoon because some bugs i thought i had fixed in my project were still occurring for another tester, that is okay, those things are normal, it is not that big of a deal, and i'm thankful to have felt good about the door, and to still feel good.