This deep into winter, with still plenty more winter to go, it’s easy to get grumpy. Work is tough and getting tougher, the house is a mess, socializing is hard, there’s not enough time, not enough of much of anything. So I’m grumpy and not often in a good mood, and neither is Abby. Roby’s always in a good mood, and around her we’re generally silly and chipper. 

It’s tough, and I think the only path through it is with perspective. Complain as much as we like, we have it pretty good. Tenuous, in a country revelling in fascism, with a bad job market, threatening pandemics, nuclear war, and whatever else, but still, pretty good. Great, even, by the span of history and the world. 

And even by the measure of much of the people I know. I have a friend who lost two fingers earlier this month, I have another who nearly lost a son, and yet another who essentially has, to mental illness in a way that seems potentially worse than death. I have a friend who hates her job that she’s been stuck in for years and a boyfriend she’s going to therapy about and no dad to talk with it about, even though he’s still alive. These are only a few of the people I know and what they’re going through. compared to that, well, I’m doing pretty dang good.

I wish that remembering that put me in a better mood.

But I’m a big ol’ baby. 

waa!