gratitude and signs

I don’t know when I started doing the sign of the cross. Well I do know when I started, being raised Catholic, but over the past few years this act to me has taken on a different meaning, especially as someone who no longer attends weekly mass and prefers an Episcopal service. Whenever I see something bad happen, like a car accident for instance, I’ll do the sign of the cross. This is just a little in-the-moment ask to God and the universe and whatever else is up there, to ensure safety for these people after a traumatic event, whether it be a fender bender or an untimely and tragic passage to the other side.

I am not doing this for anyone but myself, and it doesn’t feel like a compulsion either. I know that my acts likely will not influence the situation, but it feels nice to put good energy out there to someone I don’t know who is likely having a bad day. Sometimes I am even embarrassed by it and will do it super small, as if I am just fixing my hair in the sign of the cross.

Gratitude comes in here for me, because when witnessing someone go through something truly awful, it puts in perspective how lucky I am to be living a normal and greatly privileged life. Sometimes I will get pangs of anxiety- like what if someone is planning to do something awful in the public space I am in right now. There’s a strange duality of gratitude that calms me down though, since I have not experienced an encroachment on my physical safe in a major way (by transportation or public terror at least).

This makes me think too about what it means to be depressed, too. When I feel in a rut it usually stems from feeling like I am not doing enough or that I haven’t accomplished my goals yet and I am running out of time to get there. The end result being that I am a failure and a disappointment, etc.

Lately though, I have been trying to shift my perspective to focus on how lucky I am to be alive, even though I definitely won’t be as productive every day as I’d like to be. For example, if you know me, you know I require a lot of sleep. My body says, “fuck 8 hours, I want 9!” This has always frustrated me quite a bit. And I am not going to lie, it still frustrates me, but I am also immensely grateful that I have time to sleep 9 hours some nights. There have been many periods of my life where this wasn’t a possibility and I am sure that will be the case again. Heck, if I go to back to school and have a family, this may be the last time in my life I do have this luxury.

Anyways, this is what I thought about on my way to work this morning. Man, am I lucky to be alive.