Enjoying The Moment

It’s Monday night and I love the idea that I’ve wrapped up this day with a massage and milk toast for dinner. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this calm and stress-free when I clocked out of work on a typical Monday. It’s been even longer since I booked a massage with my incredible therapist who is truly gifted in engaging me with a short chat to “check-in” before we start, then using her magical hands and soothing studio space to totally bliss me out! And then it’s been years and years since I made milk toast. It was a fabulous taste of nostalgia and quite filling to boot.

I had a good weekend too, even though I didn’t do everything I planned to do. But hey, what else is new. I didn’t go into work for four hours of overtime. My workload was still there Monday morning and I got a much needed extended power nap Saturday afternoon. Which energized me for a dear friend’s retirement party Saturday evening. She was my first real friend outside my department when I started at my current job. That was nine years ago and I will miss her dearly but she looked so happy at her party. It was a great turn out of friends from work. Delicious food, drink and dancing as the picture below shows!

It’s my favorite as the guest of honor is having the time of her life with three fabulous friends that are also sisters. I danced so much and so hard that the toes on my left foot cramped up after I got home and into bed. Ha ha ha, it took a good 25 minutes of massaging my foot and hydrating with water to calm them down. Good times, good times…

Sunday was all about catching up with my good friend Sally over barbecue for lunch, then later the Super Bowl party at my girl Dawny’s house. I’m truly a maniac when it comes to watching sporting events and there were a few friends who’ve never experienced my particular phenomena. My team did not win so I only had one or two sudden outbursts that caused my girlfriend to the right of me to jump and my friend to the left of me to think he might lose his hearing. But in my defense, at the same time Dawny shouted on his other side, so he had us both screaming in stereo. Ha ha ha, again, good times, good times…

It’s been a stretch of days where feeling connected to my life, my friends and my various communities has been particularly strong. It’s so moving to feel this way. I was running way late for Lydia’s retirement party and just as I was pulling into the parking lot I got a text from my girl Sandi saying “Where r u?”. On the drive home from the party, I got a text from a different friend/little brother in the program thanking me for gifting one of my 7 year AA tokens for his anniversary. He was receiving one that night, but I was committed to going to the retirement party and someone who was going to be at the 12 step meeting where he was celebrating his anniversary asked if I had a 7-year token. I keep my old tokens in a beautiful wooden box from an old sponsor and gifting them to others is a way we “keep what we have by giving it away”. Getting back to today, I connected with things that fed my well-being like a massage and to my sense of childhood with milk toast. 

I can’t help but believe these stronger feelings of connection stem from the Mindful Living A-Z series and my spiritual advisor’s assignments about being more present. It’s all connected isn’t it? The cool part is that it’s an extension of being mindful and appreciating what is already in place in my life. I like it.