CATEGORY: Little Pieces of Life

My bedroom is on the eastern side of the house. Every morning, just after dawn, the first light of day finds its way through the curtains and quietly spreads across the room.

I don’t need to open my eyes to know that morning has come. The light is already there.

I stretch lazily beneath the sheets, take a deep breath, and before I even get out of bed, I smile.

“Good morning, life!”

For a moment, I lie still.

I glance around me. My eyes wander slowly across the room, as they do every morning. They linger for a moment on all those small, everyday things that make my life more beautiful, more comfortable, warmer. And silently, I bless them one by one.

The bed that let me rest all night. The pillow that cradled my head while I slept, unaware of the hours passing by. The sheets that covered me and kept my body warm. The curtains that allowed the morning light to enter the room so gently—just enough to whisper that a new day had begun, but not enough to wake me before my time.

I push the sheet away with my hands and let it slip toward the edge of the bed.

My hands…

How many things they do for me from the moment I wake up until the moment I close my eyes again. Tirelessly, they respond to every little thing I ask of them, most of the time before I even have a chance to think about it. They hold, touch, lift, caress, write, create. In a little while, they will wrap themselves around my morning cup of coffee. Later, they will type words, open doors, touch the people I love.

I place my feet on the floor and stand up.

And they, too, are there, ready to take me wherever I decide to go.

I don’t even tell them how to do it. I don’t need to. One step follows another, and I cross the room without giving a thought to the extraordinary coordination taking place inside my body just to make something so simple possible.

My spine holds me upright. My muscles work together. My joints move. My heart has kept its own tireless rhythm from the moment I fell asleep until now, without my asking it even once. My lungs fill and empty, fill and empty, and I breathe.

I simply breathe.

How much life is contained in the things we take so easily for granted?

I walk to the bathroom and turn on the tap.

Water.

Clean water flows over my hands with such a simple movement that, if you stop to think about it, it almost feels like magic. I didn’t have to search for it, carry it, or wonder whether there would be any today. I simply turn on a tap, and there it is. Cool, clean, abundant.

I let it run over my face.

Its morning coolness wakes me fully. For a moment, I look at my reflection in the mirror and smile. Beside me is everything I need. My soap, my toothbrush, clean towels folded neatly in their place.

I reach out and take one.

It is soft and dry and smells fresh and clean.

Little things.

So little that they could easily go unnoticed in the rush of an ordinary day.

Except that, to me, they are not little.

They are my life!

As I get dressed, I smile at all the abundance surrounding me. I open the wardrobe, choose what to wear, button, tie, straighten things into place, while my mind has already wandered somewhere else.

To my coffee.

I start to hurry. I want to get to the kitchen, make my coffee and prepare breakfast. My favourite little ritual of the day is waiting for me.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, I catch myself smiling again.

I remember.

I remember exactly what I do every morning. Where the coffee is, which cupboard I will open, which cup I will choose. I remember what I like to eat, how I like to prepare it, what comes next. I don’t need to leave notes somewhere to remind myself who I am or how my day begins.

My brain has kept all of it safe for me.

And not only that.

Inside it are names and faces. Streets I have walked. Words I have learned. Knowledge I have gained. People I have loved. Scents that can carry me years into the past in a single instant. Memories I thought I had forgotten, suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

And while all I am doing is thinking about my coffee, my brain is quietly coordinating so many things at once.

It helps me remember, think, decide, move, organise the day that has only just begun.

Another blessing.

“Thank you,” I think.

And I head towards the kitchen a little faster.

Because gratitude is wonderful, but morning coffee is serious business.

Mmm… coffee smells so good.

I hold the cup between both hands for a moment and let its warmth seep into my palms. Its aroma rises with the steam and fills the kitchen. Before I have even taken my first sip, I am already enjoying it.

I bring the cup to my lips.

The first sip of the day.

Warm, strong, familiar.

For a few moments, I do nothing else. I simply sit there, the cup in my hands, enjoying this small morning luxury.

Then I set it down on the table and pull my notebook closer.

I open it.

The previous pages are filled with my days. Dates, words, little thoughts, things that happened, and others so simple that perhaps no one else would understand why they ever found their way onto those pages.

I pick up my pen and write today’s date.

Every morning, I write down five things I feel grateful for.

Five.

Sometimes they are big things. Someone I love. My health. Good news. Something I had been waiting for that finally came.

Most of the time, though, they are simple.

The light that came through my curtains this morning.

My body, which got out of bed and carried me here.

The clean water that flowed the moment I turned on the tap.

The smell of the coffee sitting beside me now.

The brand-new day stretching out before me.

I look at what I have written.

I smile.

In the end, I think, the difficult part isn’t finding five things.

The difficult part is stopping at five.

I pick up my coffee and head towards my desk.

I set the cup beside me and sit down. By now, the morning light has reached this room too. It falls across my desk, my papers, my hands.

I feel something wash over me.

Not excitement. Not that loud kind of happiness that wants to shout that everything is wonderful.

Something quieter.

Deeper.

That gentle feeling that comes when, even for just a moment, you realise how much you have already been given.

I turn on my computer.

I want to write about it.

About gratitude.

My fingers begin to race across the keyboard.

I write quickly. Almost impatiently.

The thoughts come one after another, and I hurry to catch them before any of them can slip away.

I want to share all of this with you.

Not to show you that I am doing something remarkable or particularly wise. Nor to give you the impression that every morning I open my eyes, smile at life, and everything inside me is bright and beautiful.

And this is where I want to share a secret with you.

I don’t wake up happy every day.

There are mornings when I have to force a smile. There are days when I wake up tired, sad, or troubled. Maybe the day before was difficult. Maybe the whole week has been difficult. Maybe something is hurting me, something is frightening me, or perhaps I simply have no desire whatsoever to smile at the universe.

And yet, there is something I do every morning.

I give thanks.

Even on those days.

I may not feel happy about everything happening in my life. But I can still feel grateful that I opened my eyes and was given one more day to live it.

One more day to change something.

To make something right.

To love.

To laugh.

To try again.

Or even to do none of those things.

Simply to exist.

I woke up.

I’m here!

That is no small thing.

Let me tell you something that took me a long time to understand.

I used to think gratitude meant forgetting what had happened. That it meant denying what I was feeling. But I discovered that I don’t need to tell myself, “Don’t be afraid,” when I am afraid. Or “Don’t be angry,” when I am angry. And I certainly don’t try to cover a wound with beautiful words and pretend that it doesn’t hurt.

Over the years, I have noticed something within myself.

Fear makes me smaller.

Gratitude expands me.

Fear shrinks my world down to one single thing. The thing that frightens me. The thing I cannot control. The thing that might happen.

Gratitude, on the other hand, opens my eyes again.

It reminds me that, yes, there is something I am afraid of — but that is not all there is.

There is the light that entered my room this morning.

There is my body, which carried me out of bed.

There are people I love.

There is a home that shelters me.

Between you and me, gratitude is stronger than fear.

Not because it makes fear disappear.

But because it doesn’t allow fear to become my entire world.

Gratitude softens my heart. And when my heart softens, something inside me grows quieter. The fear may still be there. The anger may not have gone away. The uncertainty may still be waiting for an answer.

But I don’t have to carry them in front of me like a flag for the next twelve hours.

I can get up and continue with my day a little more peacefully.

And no, none of this means that every morning I sit for hours praying, meditating, or sending gratitude out into the universe, as though I don’t have work, responsibilities, phone calls, and an entire life waiting for me out there.

Not at all.

Sometimes it takes a few minutes.

Sometimes only a few seconds.

I begin the moment I open my eyes.

“Good morning, life!”

And somehow, before my day has even truly begun, I have already shown my mind where I want it to direct its attention today.

I am not asking it to ignore what is difficult.

I am reminding it not to miss what is beautiful, too.

And since today seems to be a day for big confessions, I’ll tell you one more thing…

I have learned not to feel guilty when, despite having so much to be grateful for, some days I am simply not okay.

I don’t consider myself ungrateful because I am hurting, or because I am afraid or angry, or because there are mornings when I have absolutely no desire to smile.

My gratitude does not require me to be happy all the time.

It does not ask me to hide what hurts or pretend that everything in my life is beautiful.

I have learned to make room for both: for what hurts me and for what is still good.

I can say, “Yes, I’m hurting today,” and a little later look up at the sky and whisper, “Thank you.”

One does not cancel out the other.

Perhaps, in the end, this is what gratitude has taught me most of all: every sunrise is a new invitation from life.

Another day given to me to love, to feel, to create, to make mistakes, to laugh, to change something, to begin again.

And tomorrow morning, when that first light finds its way through my bedroom curtains once more, I want to open my eyes and smile at it.

“Good morning, life!”

I’m still here.

And that alone…

is a blessing.