4/12/17
i'm thankful to have had a nice facetime with my parents while d was out to dinner with a coworker. i'm thankful that my mom is finding strength in considering getting a different job because the one she has is so stressful. i'm thankful to have encouraged her to consider not just retail but office assistant jobs; i'm thankful that she expressed a worry in her capability at troubleshooting issues with printers and i'm thankful, based on my comprehensive experience, to have told her that basically everyone in her office would likely have equivalent or worse computer troubleshooting skills and that she shouldn't keep her from applying for those kinds of jobs.
i'm thankful to reassure her and try to build her confidence but at the same time to try not to put pressure on her, especially because i know that it must be a whole other level of stressful to be applying for new jobs in her early fifties than it is for me in my early thirties. i'm thankful for the year and a half that i lived with my parents in between living in korea and going to grad school, where my mom was reassuring and confidence-building but at the same time didn't put pressure on me and gave me the space and time to do the kind of work i wanted to do, without which i might not have anything like the life i have today and might well not be writing these notes to you now. i'm thankful for how happy my parents are that i have a good job that i like.
i'm thankful, in happier news, that on her days off she and my dad rode their bikes together 10 miles each day. i'm thankful that though for a number of years my dad had health issues that kept him from riding bikes, he's able to and is really enjoying it now. i'm thankful to have admonished my parents for not wearing bike helmets; i'm thankful for the distasteful terry schiavo joke i made, which was too real but will hopefully lodge in their minds and get them to get helmets. i'm thankful to have thought several times in the past few days while riding it how much i love my bike—i'm thankful for how much more fun it is to bike in the springtime and i'm thankful that i'm building back up the muscles in my legs.
i'm thankful to have biked to the pharmacy yesterday on my lunch break to pick up my antidepressants. i'm thankful for the head pharmacist, who knows me by name and who i always like talking to. i'm thankful that while she was updating my insurance information, i was looking at a nearby display and asked her whether the new flonase "sensimist" was any better than regular flonase (which i depend on during allergy season) and am thankful for the candor with which she told me that no, it was half the active ingredient of regular flonase at a higher price and was a blatant cash grab by the parent company, who probably acquired some smaller company that had a slightly different formulation/active ingredient and rebranded it.
i'm thankful that while she checked me out, we talked about our days off and she told me about spending time with her four year old son, who is obsessed with video games and who she has to force to go outside, tomorrow. i'm thankful to have told her about how i was obsessed with video games at his age and so i think he'll turn out okay too as she handed me the multiple antidepressants i rely on in order to stay sane. i'm thankful for her nice smile and laugh and for how warmly we told each other, including each others' first names, to have a good day.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to thank you notes: