Flowers

On my way home from work tonight I noticed an unexpected thing. In the middle of the packed train, I found myself admiring how pretty the lights on the buildings passed looked as they hit the surface of the river as the train passed.

This is unexpected because for most of the last four years I have been in hellish jobs, and my evening train rides home were most often spent trying to calm myself down from the stress and frustration of my day and push all those work-related thoughts out of my head so my evening could be as relaxing as possible. I almost never succeeded.

My current job is certainly not perfect, and there are some things about it that are highly stressful and frustrating. But for some reason I feel like I have more capacity to enjoy things now than I have had in a long time. Maybe it's not just the job...maybe it's just that the stars are aligned right...maybe it's just that I've gotten older and learned how to deal better. But despite all the work-related stress of my new job and all of the non-work-related stressful events that have happened over the last year and are still not over, I finally am able to stop and smell the flowers. It's as if my mind has room to breathe. I just have to learn to maintain this through whatever other stress that comes my way. I still have a lot of flowers to smell.