To make this point, I’m going to have to tell you a really boring part of my job.

The bulk of my everyday activity at work is inputting the same information about patients over and over and over all day long. There is an option where I can click a button and it will just magically fill in all of the information itself if we’ve seen the patient before and previously filled in this information. Great, right? Well, we’ve only had this software since last February and since most of the population is recommended to visit the optometrist only once a year, I’ve been doing a lot of inputting tedious information since I started this job last May. For the record, I adore every single other aspect of my job so it’s totally worth it.

Anyway, somewhere around November, I kept thinking to myself, “I can not wait until we’ve had this software for a year so that most of the people who come through here will probably already have their info taken care of.” Every day I would curse, “I wish I could just push that [stupid] button!”

The other day, I realized that it’s March. We’ve had this software for a year, and by now the majority of our patients are repeats and I can just push the button! And, oh, I do. I push it with complete glee and relief and  it occurred to me that I am in that season that I was so looking forward to–I had been for weeks–and I didn’t even notice it.

I tend to run into that a lot. I would watch movies and see the single girl who has her own sun-bathed apartment and I couldn’t wait to have that for myself. And sometimes, usually when I’m stepping into the shower or lugging groceries up the stairs, I remember– I am in that season that I was so looking forward to and I don’t even notice it.
A few weeks ago, I pulled up to my house after a long and stressful day and I saw my boyfriend descending the stairs of my apartment, carrying a trash bag. He was a little embarrassed that I caught him in the midst of what was supposed to be a vaguely anonymous good deed. But I sat there in my car and I thought, ” I am in this graceful season that I could have never imagined to hope for and I so rarely notice it.”

I am moving around so fast, just barely getting through the day sometimes and other times daydreaming about the future so much that I so rarely take a moment to look at this life that I am living–that I am immeasurably satisfied with. I am happy. Happier than I remember ever being, and I almost never look around with grateful eyes.

I have friends who have re-defined “friendship” as my mind has ever known it, I have a job that I want to have forever, I am dating the most witty, talented, kind man that I have ever known, and I have two–two plants in my home that, as of this morning, I have not killed. Things are difficult but things are perfect and worth acknowledging. Worth fighting for.

And I hope you can see that, too.

XOXO, Lib