Thanksgiving was not all that long ago, and I suppose I was supposed to write something about gratitude. I didn’t. It is too much with me. It overwhelms me. Hourly, sometimes. Certainly daily, when I haven’t cultivated a shitty day. And I feel it, you know? Like, I feeeeeeeeel it. It surrounds me with spicy, vibrant air and fills me like hot coffee on a cold morning.

And really, I am most grateful for coffee.

Not really. But yes, really.

I can be floored by gratitude walking my dog or tucking layers of covers around me at night or eating with the bf on the couch, but it hits me most often when I’m working at home in the morning, as I walk from the kitchen to the dining room table, curl my leg under me to sit down and place my hot coffee mug to the right of my laptop.

It is more than a dream come true, that I could live a life of such luxury: in a place I want to be, with the creatures I want to live with, warm, safe, and not having to worry about the price of coffee. The addition of a bagel is almost too much. That I could walk to a coffee shop and buy a bagel … who could deserve such things. No one. Certainly not me. But it’s not about deserving, is it. It’s about luck. And I am almost unbearably lucky. What I actually dreamed about? When I was a kid and did such things?

Being an adult. And it’s everything I hoped it would be.

A memorable Anne Sexton line, from one of her dozens of poems about insomnia and insanity, awake and churning:

Dear God, wouldn’t it be
good enough to just drink cocoa? 

Maybe if it were coffee.