thank you notes 9/29
i'm thankful that d is a boss and got a raise after her excellent annual review. i'm thankful my mom got an interview for a new job and that d and i shared techniques that we'd used to prepare for interviews and that while she is nervous, she is also confident. i'm thankful that this morning, i spent a half hour i would have spent writing these notes editing a teaching statement for one of the visiting lecturers from my old job. i'm thankful, even though i think my writing here is important, both to me and to the people who read it, to have spent my writing time (i'm thankful to have typo-ed that as "team," which feels significant) contributing to something more instrumental, something that might actually change her life.
i'm thankful, on the other hand, to know that changing someone's life (and/or my own) doesn't have to mean a big thing that's a bullet point in an obituary—it can be as small as a moment, a gesture, an expression. i'm thankful, even if the visiting lecturer doesn't get the job she's applying for, that maybe me editing the teaching statement for her was still a good, a positive, because it reduced her stress level this morning or allowed her to focus on something else she that needs her attention (like preparing to actually teach her class today) or that a phrase i changed helped her reframe the way she thinks about herself or be better able to state her worth to thers. i'm thankful for the hope that that small change might cause a ripple effect of other small good changes that might in time or with enough luck become a bigger change.
i'm thankful to remind myself, then, of the importance of being attentive to micro changes like this when the prospect of making a macro change that would improve my life feels complicated and impossible to me, as it does lately. i'm thankful when i feel that way, to break out of the prison of my expectations and try to do something small right then (right now) to change my life or someone else's life (which also changes my life, through osmosis or by proxy). i'm thankful for when d touched my hip as i climbed out from under the covers to get my computer to edit the teaching statement and thankful at her laughter at the funny little jump i made from the mattress to the floor. i'm thankful to make funny little jumps whenever i can.
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