(e)

i'm thankful for the unexpected and uncharacteristically sweet text i received from t this morning while packing for the journey home from my week-long work trip. i'm thankful for the timing of the message, which i received moments before my phone turned off suddenly and inexplicably. i'm thankful i had a safe trip home. i'm thankful for my phone company's customer support representative, who is now checking the warranty on my phone, which hasn't turned on since this morning. i'm thankful mercury is currently in retrograde, which i enjoy blaming tech-related mishaps like this on.

i'm thankful for the many hours i've already sank into trying to fix this problem myself today instead of doing something more reasonable like unpacking or going to bed early. i'm thankful i'm a person who is not only good at troubleshooting, but who enjoys the challenge of finding a solution to a problem through a long, annoyingly persistent process of experimentation. i'm thankful for the strange mix of science and wizardry that troubleshooting software/hardware involves, including in this particular case everything from briefly leaving my phone in the freezer to what one blogger called _"the sacred incanation [sic] of holding POWER and Volume Down at the same time, selecting Recovery Mode, then holding POWER while tapping Volume Up."_

i'm thankful for the apologetic tone of the customer support representative i'm typing to over online chat, even if the interaction feels a bit rigid and robotic. i'm thankful to not feel very hopeful about where this interaction is going but to do it anyway because i would really like a working phone again soon. i'm thankful my experience doing customer support at a company that excels at it has made me a much kinder and more understanding person when i'm the one needing a resolution to a frustrating problem.

i'm thankful during moments of sudden data loss to remember i rely on many cloud services to store my digital belongings and that the only important thing on my phone that isn't backed up elsewhere is many months of photos and videos i've taken. i'm thankful for instagram, where a small sliver of my favorite images from the last year and a half still exist.

i'm thankful that even though i don't have access to any of my own photos from this past week, j sent me a few earlier that made me smile. i'm thankful other people at our company retreat took lots of photos. i'm thankful to hope that some of the photos include me and that i like the way i look in them. i'm thankful to occasionally indulge my own vanity.

i'm thankful for the hoarseness of my voice, which reveals how much more i talked this past week than i normally do (and how loudly i sang both in front of and with so many of my coworkers on saturday at the karaoke night i organized).

i'm very thankful for my work friends. i'm especially grateful for my friendship with j and the many hours we spent together in person after months of communicating via lines of text. i'm thankful for the somewhat rare joy of making new friends as a grown-up.

i'm thankful the ancient greeks developed a language that distinguishes between many more different types of love than english does. i'm thankful for the greek word _philia_, which refers specifically to the feeling of love between friends. i'm thankful to have felt this love and camaraderie at many points and with many people throughout the past week. i'm thankful to think of love as a renewable resource and to believe i have a lot of it and a lot of different kinds of it to give.

i'm thankful that after several hours of troubleshooting, my phone successfully turned on long enough for me to swiftly upload my photos from the past week to a safe place. i'm thankful for the very last image i took, which is a stitched together "photo sphere" of a handful of my beloved coworker-friends sitting at a sunny table on a patio near a large swimming pool.

i'm thankful that even though my phone is out of warranty, 

i received the following message from the support representative i've been chatting with: _"Wow! I've checked this with my specialist and convinced him. I'm happy to inform you that I'll replace the device as one time exception for you and I also help you with the free next day shipping. so that you can get the device very soon."_

i'm thankful they had some good news to deliver me (for their sake and mine). i'm thankful that good customer service is not just about the words used, but in the actions they represent. i'm thankful my new phone is scheduled to arrive tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. i'm thankful to be receiving a new phone for free, since mine is in pretty bad shape from dropping it countless times without a case on it. i'm thankful for fresh starts and the promise they hold, even when they feel unwanted and ill-timed. i'm thankful for shiny new gadgets.

i'm thankful to be home after a fun but exhausting week away. i'm thankful to feel unsure of how i'll wake up tomorrow morning without a working phone to set an alarm on. i'm thankful i'm about to go to sleep in my own bed.

- e (8/14/17).