“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I told my mom this morning.
And that was a true statement. Usually I sleep soundly and well and that’s a grace and I know it. But, not last night. Last night I tossed and woke up and couldn’t fall sleep and flailed some more.
“You know when you wake up and you’re already tired??” I said to my cube-mates when I arrived at work, setting my bright floral bag on my desk.
My face looks puffy. My eyes are tired. Mehhhhhhhhhhh.
Now, on Wednesdays there’s a good man, Marcus (name changed!), who volunteers at my little church to go out and about distributing sandwiches and socks and what not to the needy. Sometimes, on Wednesdays, I join him. We’re an odd duo. He’s tall and thin and straight-forward; I’m short and meander-y. But, I do enjoy his company. He wears khaki and grey, neutral colors; but he wears a bracelet made, I assume, by his daughters out of an assorted neon rainbow of small rubber bands. At lunchtime we walk about, with sandwiches and granola bars. We talk about his daughters, my trips, our shared struggles in the gluten-free world.
I joined him today. Around noon. We had already seen around five or six needy neighbors today when I pointed out a man’s seated legs sticking out by a parking structure overhang. We walked over, asked the seated man if he wanted a sandwich or some socks. He did. Marcus started rustling around for the socks.
I asked the man, “How are you today?”
He said, “I didn’t sleep so well last night.”
And I said, “Neither did I!”
And then I realized: but at least I had a bed. And a roof. And a clean blanket.
Perspective, yo. It changes things.