My Life Sucks But I Rock...Because There Are So Many Things I Can Be Thankful For

A Holiday Inspired Post

Note:
This is the 2nd installment of a new series inspired by my brother (see the inaugural descriptive post). Considering the season, despite the false pretenses under which we celebrate, and since I slept through Thanksgiving dinner (I was physically and emotionally exhausted from my first trip since getting transverse myelitis (TM)), I felt it appropriate to make the first official "My Life Sucks But I Rock"-dedicated post centered around thankfulness.

Although this is a numbered list, it DOES NOT represent any particular hierarchy. Think: poetic license.



Things that I am Most Thankful for Today
11.29.08

1. Couches that hug
2. Sleep: because forgetting is not a medical side effect
   
3. My Mother: because there are too many reasons to list here
4. Klonipin, Tramadol, Gabapentin, and Oxycodone
   
5. My Brother: because he is teeming with surprises and could make a man hanging off a ledge of an 80 story building laugh
6. Kindness: because it creates warmth beyond its own vicinity
7. Frozen dinners and elevators
8. My Aunt Marci: because she is full of contradictions, divine, will always be there in person when you need her, and drinks as much if not more wine than I do
9. Airplanes
   
10. Family: because I believe in some way I can count on them, even if I can't
11. Friends who call every day even tho they know the phone sometimes annoys me and I won't answer or talk long. But they really know their calls make me feel safe, loved, inspired, and less alone
12. Men that hit on me
13. Ex-boyfriends who become friends
    
14. My job
15. My supervisor, Steve Dimeo: because he is kind, ab fab hilarious, can do accents, sings karaoke, is on my side, and will hopefully fall madly and mutually in love with one of my best friends, bringing her to Philadelphia to live near me forever and ever
    
16. Low-cut, v-neck tank tops and cardigans...because everything that touches my portacath feels like anger
17. People who offer assistance because they know I am too embarrassed or proud (still need to figure that one out with my therapist) to ask for it
18. People who don't handle me like a helpless gimp...especially in public
19. The Internet
    
20. Dr. Schwartman: because he does everything he can to heal me while fighting the system that's denying treatment. And because he swears "we'll get you better and married."
    
21. Soft robes and pink slippers
22. Children: because their love is unhindered
23. Hope, even when it is a child playing hide and go seek
24. Magee Rehabilitation: a place that gives me hope
    
25. The realization that healers come in all types, professions, and visual representations
26. Hypnotists...I WILL quite smoking this month
    
27. Social networking sites: because you can find a mutually-rare-experience-virtual-and/or-in-person home of support
28. Spell check
29. The chance opportunity to see my ex-husband's three children and tell them I still care about them and always will
    
30. Gifts
31. December 17 - the date I go to The Transverse Myelitis Center at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for my appointment with Dr. Pardo-Villamizar
32. Enlightenment - even when it lives in clouds...it will rain eventually
    
33. Knowing that Judy has left for Germany where she is about to go into a 2-week ketamine coma that could liberate her from RSD
34. Cute tennies - with or without platform heels
35. Irony
    
36. Everyone who moved all of my belonging up 9 stories into my new apartment while I watched and felt sorry for myself for being helpless
37. Friends who don't get too terribly annoyed when I feel sorry for myself
    
38. Soothing touch...even if its only from my mother for now
39. Sephora product samples
40. Sana at/& Joan Shepp: because I get retail therapy, friendship, and clothes that make me look so much better than I feel
41. Butt-lifting, thigh-flattering, tight jeans (I will always be thankful for this)
42. Delivery
43. Tall boots with zippers
44. Small gatherings with good friends and good wine
45. My new 32" flat screen TV
46. Smiles
    
47. The fact that it could be so much worse