Welp, it happened once again. I locked myself out of something. Usually my car, this time it was my house. At 11:00PM, no less! What a doosie of a night I’ve had. I won’t go into the details of how this happened because I’ve already recited the chain of events to so many people at this point. Not to mention every time I do so I feel like I’m desperately trying to prove that it wasn’t my fault, just a simple mistake. It could happen to anyone, right? Yet it happens to me SO OFTEN. WHY?! I’m convinced I must be cursed or something.
Anyway… getting to the main point. For some reason, even more so than the other countless times something like this has happened, I felt deeply moved and filled with gratitude by so many of the events that followed.
Firstly, even though I was frustrated, I wasn’t panicked. I knew exactly what I could do. I walked to the first neighbor on my street who still had their lights on and asked to use their phone. (Mine was locked in my house.) Thus initiates my first wave of gratitude. Someone was awake. I was fortunate enough to have a kind, albeit rather strange, neighbor willing to help me even during these crazy pandemic times.
I called my grandmother who luckily lives only a few minutes away from me. Miracle of miracles, she was awake. While she didn’t have a spare key to my house, she did come get me so I wasn’t waiting out in the cold. After she collected me, we called my mother who does have a spare key. She was by some grace of god also awake still. (My family and I are all little old ladies that go to bed extremely early usually, if you haven’t realized that by now.)
I ended up getting the spare key and making it back into my house all within an hour or so. And as I reflect back on that hectic hour, I realize just how much there was packed into it for me to pause and be grateful for.
I am grateful that I take medication for my social anxiety. Otherwise there is no way I would have had the nerve to ask a neighbor I didn’t even know for help in the middle of the night. I would have definitely rather walked over a mile to my grandmother’s house wearing all black in the middle of the night on sketchy back roads in the freezing cold. I know that may sound ridiculous, but that’s how bad my social anxiety was.
I am also grateful that my neighbor was so kind and understanding. In the back of my mind, I was somewhat afraid I would be murdered or raped. Or at the very least, have to deal with an irate person whom I woke up and inconvenienced in the middle of the night. Instead, he was happy to help me, let me sit on his porch and use his phone, and even offered me a ride if I needed it.
And finally, I feel a deep gratitude in the very marrow of my bones for my family. I honestly don’t know what I would do without them. They have done and continue to do more for me than I could possibly deserve or ever repay. I am so lucky to have an incredible family like I do. They mean more to me than I can express. I want to start showing them that more often. I don’t know how much time we have left here together in this world. I want to use that time wisely. I want to visit my mother and grandmother far more frequently. I want to call them on the phone and tell them about my day more, hug them more, check on them more. I want them to feel just how loved they truly are, how precious they are to me, how grateful I am to have them in my life. Nothing could be more important.
Protect the Innocent 