The joy of nothing special

“The ordinariness of our good fortune can make it hard to catch.” – Pema Chödrön

I’m not sure how I spent my days before I started in earnest to notice the ordinary. I imagine I paid attention more to the narrator in my head – telling me who I was and how I’m meant to be. My failings, my shortcomings. Telling me to lose some fucking weight. 

I remember caring so much what others thought, what others said. I knew the latest celebrity gossip. CNN’s ever-breaking news. When the fashions changed, and my shoes were out. 

Maybe it was exciting, chasing the perfect, chasing the ideal. Checking off the next box on the lists of accomplishments – check, check, check, check. 

Exhausting, all that running to keep up and still be miles behind the Joneses. Miles behind the space I believed I should be occupying, to feel as if I was enough.  

Now I know I was missing so much. How the sun came through the crack in the shade and lit up the copper pan my grandma made me. The sound of my dog gnawing his bone. How the chenille pillow feels on my skin and the subtle hint of vanilla in a cappuccino. 

To relax in the ordinary. To rest as ordinary. This is what makes my life so beautiful.