Gratitude of the Day: Living in a basement

Now, it must be admitted that I don’t always love the fact I live in a basement. When I wake up and it’s pitched black and there’s no way for me to know whether it’s 2 a.m. or noon. I don’t love living in a basement. When the power goes out and I have to resort to filling a pan up with candles while others could simple draw the curtains, I don’t love living in a basement. But when do I love living in a basement?

When the city has been hovering around 30 degrees C for weeks and my home — air conditioner free, might I add — is at the perfect temperature. This time last year in my second floor apartment I was sleeping on top of my covers, with the door open and the fan propped next to the window — so it could weakly blow some humid air in my direction. And to complete that picture — I was sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed just to get it that little bit closer to the window. It was also so hot that blow drying and/or straightening my hair, or, really, looking presentable in any way, shape or form, was completely out of the question. So that is why today, I give thanks for my glorious basement apartment.

And while I’m at it — that whole power outage thing I mentioned. Not so bad when you have an awesome roommate and wind up spending the entirety of the evening huddled around a collection of tea-lights gabbing away and eating various dairy products and fruit items (because after all — they could have gone bad at any moment for all we knew!)

So here’s to cool basements, awesome roommates and unexpected turns of events that wind up being spectacular!

Gratitude of the day: Not being a teenager anymore

Sometimes when I’m down I feel compelled to make a list of all the things I’m grateful for. The list is usually quite serious and introspective — filled with thing like “my family” and “having a safe home”. But today I would like to express my gratitude for something far simpler — not being a teenager anymore.
All it took was a gaggle of adolescents getting on the subway next to me to make me realize how grateful I am to be done with that part of my life. Normally when I see a group of teenagers yelling across a streetcar or smoking on the corner of school grounds I roll my eyes and struggle to suppress my irritation. But something about this particular lead me to a revelation of how happy I am not to be in that age bracket anymore. Clawing for attention, desperate to understand who they are, wishing they felt they fit in, questioning each and every decision they make because the whole notion of “just be yourself” makes absolutely no logical sense, feeling they have to buy this electronic or that purse because they can’t possibly be cool without it, pushing to get in a comment so they can establish they have a place in the crazy world that is high school. Man. Did that ever suck!
Lately magazines are filled with celebrities saying they feel better than ever at 30, at 40, at 50 — whatever age it is — my gosh, it has to be better than 13 through 18. You couldn’t pay me to relive that ridiculous insecurity and self doubt. I’m not saying I radiate self love and confidence every second of the day, but I certainly feel a whole lot better about myself than I did five years ago and that is something to be truly grateful for.