(patrick)(4)

i’m thankful for my partner's suggestion that i get to work on the big old calluses that have formed on my heels after years of wearing shoes of slightly the wrong size. i’m thankful for the realisation that it was perhaps not entirely normal to be busting holes in the heels of new socks after only a month or two of wear. i’m thankful that, with the regular application of foot cream, and the regular attention of a metal grater, my heels are looking a lot less angular these days. i’m thankful for the idea that my defects might not be a permanent part of me, a burden that i have to carry for the rest of my days; i’m thankful for the idea that they can be worked on, like filing down a callus, so that they don’t wreck the fabric of things meaningful to me, like socks.

i’m thankful that after i wrote a thing on my blog a few weeks ago, an old friend from university sent me an email suggesting we meet up for coffee, even though we haven’t seen each other in many years. in a way i’m also thankful that, after we exchanged a few more emails, the friend did not reply at all to my actual suggestion of a time and a place; now that time has passed, i’m thankful that i was spared the initial awkwardness of meeting this person again after so long, even though i really did want to. i’m not at all thankful for the sense i have now of returning to business as usual, which is to say having nobody to have coffee with. 

i’m thankful that in a way i don’t have to ask or wonder why they didn’t get back to me because i already kind of know that it was probably related to a bad thing i did a very long time ago; not a thing i did to this person, but to someone close to them; something i now regret more intensely than anything i have ever done. i’m thankful for the image that came to me of it as i was describing the bad thing to my therapist: a hot ember secreted away in dark chimney, silently smoking; not often felt or seen but apt to start a fire one of these days. 

i’m thankful to justin as ever for his continued efforts in providing a slow drip of textual joy to my inbox most days, and for providing this quiet channel in which i can write something which will hopefully have a shorter online half-life than anything i throw on my blog or social media. 

i’m thankful my cat finally mustered up the courage to go out in the rain for his post-dinner poop this evening; i'm thankful also that he came back through the cat flap like a cannon ball, happy and lighter. i’m thankful he was thankful to be rubbed with a towel. i’m thankful to be inside with the cat.

- patrick (5/19/17). @marginalgloss