Orange Sunsets, Purple and Green Tapestries, and the Quiet Power of Noticing

 My mood has been poor the past two days, but I'm still seeing improvement. Today work seemed to drag on, and all I wanted was to go home and do nothing. As I walked to my car after my shift, I witnessed the most beautiful sunset. I stopped to take a couple photos. Something about that sunset lifted my mood. Before the medication, there would be next to nothing that would be able to change my mood for the better. As I drove towards home, the sky became more vibrant. The oranges and blues were vivid and gorgeous so I pulled into the county library parking lot, opened my car door with one foot on the pavement, and took another photo. I swear pictures never do the sky justice. I came home and cooked dinner. I've been trying to keep up with chores this week so the weekend can be for relaxing, but I left the dishes tonight. I am so tired. I feel like I'm fighting some sort of sickness going around. Sometimes I get lonely, and then I take a good look around at my life. While things are far from perfect, I am very fortunate to be a witness to the world around me. The color of the sunset's reflection on the glass panes of the hospital I work at. The sky and all it contains. People living their lives (even when they cut me off in traffic). There's so much beauty. It connects all the pain together into a tapestry (I imagine deep purple and forest green) filled with specks of glimmery hope (gold, for certain). While there's so much to feel in this world, and it often becomes overwhelming, I do not regret the sensitive nature that dwells within me. It is a gift that was given to me long ago, something I was taught to be ashamed of. This gift is what gives me the ability to see the dusty corners of the world that might otherwise go unnoticed. I would like to believe that means something. That being noticed can be a quiet, powerful thing, and that the one noticing might be altered forever. That somehow we are connected in a sacred, tangible moment that can never be replicated. That's what I like to think, anyway.

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