Awakenings

"Take today: it's a nice day to be alive..." - Christy Altomare, "I Let it Slip"

I think it's safe to say that since starting A Daily Offering of Gratitude each of us has started to view the world and our involvement in it a little (or a lot) differently. We've chosen to change our focus, to choose the positive, to open our eyes. In my case, I honestly and truly think I suddenly started experiencing life and the world around me all over again. Without even commanding them to, my senses awoke and began appreciating all that I see, smell, taste, touch, hear.

And I got to thinking - how much of my everyday life do I take for granted? How much do we all take for granted? How often do I dwell on my problems or my to-do list instead of just taking 3 simple seconds to think, "hey... this is kinda nice."? Perhaps most importantly, how will our lives be positively affected if we allow and encourage ourselves to experience even the simplest things as if we were encountering them for the first time? It's so freakin' fun to watch a child marvel at something new... just because I'm 22 doesn't mean I can't try to be like that, just a little bit.

Well now is as good a time as any to snap out of the doldrums. At the end of the week I'll officially be done with school; I'm starting that "new chapter" of life, and I'm getting ready to enter the infamous "real world." I don't want to start this new part of my life essentially sleep-walking. I want to wake the hell up!

"Wake up everyone / How can you sleep at a time like this, unless the dreamer is the real you?" - Jason Mraz, "Make it Mine"

Here are just a few of the things I've started rediscovering in the last couple of days:

• The absolute bliss that comes with getting the pillows on my bed in exactly the right position.
• Standing in the shower, closing my eyes, and letting the water run down my face.
• The complexities of and simplicities of food - pasta salad, cookie dough, thai peanut noodles, eggs, fresh veggies, brownies..... (Not all at once, of course. Ew.)
• The overload of awesomeness that is driving in the sunshine, with the ac on, drinking an iced coffee and blasting In The Heights.
• Forgetting that In The Heights was in my CD player, turning on the car after work and hearing "96,000" start skipping out the speakers.
• That energy that pulses through the room during a really great rehearsal.
• The warmth of the sun on my skin.
• The sensation of walking barefoot through the shallow tide, salt water half way to my knees, smooth rocks, grains of sand, and slippery seaweed massaging my feet.
• The pinkish-orange haze that blankets everything as the sun sets.
• The way my whole bathroom smells delicious after I shower with my lemon-pomegranate body scrub.
• Rum & coke with lime. Enough said.
• The warm-fuzzy feeling that comes with hugs from people I haven't seen in a while.

I know I won't awaken new to the world every day. I know there will still be plenty of days where I just go through the motions. I know all too well that things on this planet are far from perfect and that there are plenty of people who bring about hate, corruption, frustration, pain.

But I hope that more often than not I'll appreciate that I get to live this life on this earth.

Tomorrow morning, when I have to meet my class at the ungodly hour of 6am for our field trip, I hope I won't focus on how tired I am or how much I don't want to ride in a van for at least 2 1/2 hours each direction. Instead, I'm making it my goal to appreciate the how awesome it is that I even woke up to a new day at all and how lucky I am to spend two days in a row at the beach.

Waking up and offering my gratitude,

Lauren