I used to think I knew quite a bit about love. Turns out I don’t know as much as I thought I did.

I used to think that a first love had the most staying power. Its innocence, gut-wrenching yearning and raw, stinging pain when things went sideways were, I assumed, indicators of its depth. Instead, they were emotions new to my young heart – emotions that weren’t governed by rational thought or any sort of prior experience. Emotions that I struggled to make sense of.

Years later, post first love, I remember sitting in my apartment with a new love. We were sitting quietly, maybe talking, and I started to quietly cry. The tears caught me off-guard, as they were incredibly happy, peaceful and content tears. I thought for sure they were a sign of the relationship’s longevity. They were not, as the tide shifted and things ended a year later.

Months after that, I can recall walking into a meeting and seeing someone who made my world stand still. Every sound was silenced, all thoughts were paralyzed and I was instantly convinced that my last relationship had ended to make room for this one. This must, I thought to myself, be what love at first sight was all about. While reciprocated, things never clicked. Timing was off. He’d go in one direction, I’d go in another. We tried to dance the dance, but the steps didn’t come easily; between the two of us, it was like we had four left feet. I’ve wondered occasionally since then whether my world will be stopped by someone, and if it is, what it will mean.

Those unforgettable moments in love have a funny way of getting under your skin and making you wonder why they happened with the people who didn’t last. They make you wonder if they’ll be felt again. And assuming they will, they make you wonder how far into a new relationship it’ll be before they make an appearance.

I suppose the point of them isn’t to wonder when they’ll return, but instead they’re meant to be bottled up and put on a pedestal, brought down only to be compared to the one you’re about to exchange vows with. Someone to whom you’re saying “I do” is someone you deserve to have time stand still with, who inspires tears of contentment and who creates a yearning like no other. And for feeling these things before, I am thankful – since it’s only a matter of time before they come around again. I may not know much about love, but I know enough to be patient and let it come in its own time.

When I moved, I felt like I had three strikes against me: I was blonde, and a chick, and from California.

It would stand to reason that these weren’t strikes at all, being that I’d spent nine months interviewing with them and they knew exactly what they were getting. But then again, I never found it easy to reason with Connecticut’s people the whole time I lived there, so I suppose that point is moot.

The person whose position I filled was one of those unfortunate types who felt very comfortable telling me that it was my role now, and that I should “figure it out” – “it” being anything I had a question about. He seemed consistently unhappy and was always too busy to be bothered.

Aside from that gem of a human being, I had a twitchy supervisor who always made me uneasy. During meetings, casual conversations, lunches – you name it – this person’s knee would be rapidly bouncing up and down, and there would be major fidgeting going on. He’d be squishing a stress ball, tapping a pencil and rapid-firing words as though there would never be a chance to speak again. There was way too much energy radiating from this person in good times to make me want to be anywhere in the vicinity if and when things went bad. And they did.

It was a January afternoon, and many in the office were out working Super Bowl-related events. I was in the office getting ready for the NASCAR season. That time of year also happened to be review time, and HR had circulated a new form for employees to fill out about themselves.

It was a confusing form that I’d asked HR to clarify. They said to interpret it in the way that would best enable me to answer the questions about myself. Awesome, thanks for that clarity.

I sent my completed form to twitchy supervisor, noting in my email that I found the form confusing. I explained that I’d like to talk through it at his convenience, so he set up an end-of-day meeting for us.

I walked in, and he asked me to close the door. The meeting went something like this:

Him (armed with a print out of my review, and with knee bouncing up and down): “So, I printed this out.”

Me: “OK, great. I have a copy, too.”

Him (pregnant pause, more twitching): “This…this has to stop.” He was holding up my review form.

Me: “…what has to stop?”

Him: “This. This!” He was no longer holding, but was now waving my review form in the air.

Me: “What?”

Him: “This! This is bull$h!t!” Then he threw the papers in my general direction. They fluttered to the ground.

I don’t remember much about what I said next, but he said that my performance was crap and that it needed to improve. I challenged him and asked why and how this was coming up now since I’d never heard anything before, and he couldn’t really give me an answer. I do remember asking him if he had anything in my file about any “performance” issues. He said no. I remember saying something like, “Of course you don’t,” because I knew I had client emails, internal emails – many emails that alluded to no such crap, as noted by their thanks and praise.

Then the fur started to fly. Fur, in this case, was in the form of pencils which were thrown at me. Scissors were jettisoned across his desk in my direction. Next, a tape dispenser. Then the pencil holder came my way.

With the door closed and many people out of the office, the guy had completely gone off the deep end. Of course this would be my luck. I can’t remember specifics, but I definitely conveyed that he was, in fact, acting inappropriately.

“No, you’re out of line!” he yelled at me. “You’re a manager!”

Not really sure what that was supposed to mean, I came back with, “Wrong, you’re out of line. You’re my SUPERVISOR.”

I told him that I quit, and all he could do was stammer back at me.

“You can’t quit – you can’t quit! Daytona is a few weeks away!”

“I know it is. But you know what? I just did. I quit.”

What I found amusing about the whole situation was that the guy went off – throwing things, even – over a review form that I completed about myself. Not him, not someone else, me.

Me.

A review form that I acknowledged was confusing, and that I wanted to talk about to get his guidance.

What room is there to blow up? None. It was just the way he was wired – not that it excuses anything.

Sometime after dissolving into a puddle of shocked, angry tears in the bathroom, I went numb. Had I really spent nine months interviewing to have it end like this? I drove home. I think I called my parents and told them I was jobless. And even though I heard my mom’s voice in my head saying, “Never quit a job unless you have another one to go to,” I couldn’t have been happier.

I set my alarm for the next morning, determined to stick to some sort of routine. At 7:00, it went off, and music started playing. Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” filled my room, and the happenings of the evening before came rushing back. I snickered to myself, knowing that it had, in fact, been a bad day – but it was a bad day that led to a lot of good. It was the start of a new beginning, and it taught me so much about the kind of place I never wanted to work at again, the kind of people I never wanted to work for again, and all I had before me was opportunity.

And I was thankful.

“You know, the Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: ‘Did he have passion?’” – Dean Kansky in Serendipity

I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted this elsewhere in Thanky, so please pardon the repetition.

I didn’t particularly care for the movie Serendipity when it came out, but it’s become one of those movies I’ll watch time and time again when it’s on TV. Then again, most anything that features John Cusack, chick-flick or not, is a no-brainer for me.

I was thinking about passion last night, and how it’s that one thing that connects most everything we come across which stirs an emotion inside us.

The good, the bad and the ugly are all connected by passion. Some people in the world do terrible things because they have a passion for a certain cause, regardless of whether that cause is noble.

Others do lovely, heartfelt things because they’re fueled by a do-good, pay-it-forward kind of passion.

If we’re unhappy, sometimes it’s because our passion isn’t being pursued or because it hasn’t yet been realized.

Passion isn’t always about making a public name for yourself. Sometimes it’s the personal side of things that’s even more important – case in point: many parent with passion, and many teach with passion.

Passion isn’t always loud, and it isn’t always obvious. It doesn’t matter whether it brings you fame or money – what matters is that it’s there. And it’s something that we should ask ourselves on a daily basis – not something we should leave for someone else to ponder after we’ve passed.

The question needs an answer of “yes,” and it needs it frequently. On today, Valentine’s Day, it’s a fitting question for us all: do you have passion? I know that I do, and I am thankful for mine.

I’m not sure if it had been that way from the moment I got dressed, or if it happened sometime later during the course of the day, but I knew one thing: my zipper was down.

The funny thing about a zipper being down, or someone pointing out that you have ink on your face from a pen that went rogue, something in your teeth from lunch or maybe even a “bat in the cave,” is that you then go back over your entire day with a fine-toothed comb. After you zip up, that is.  

You find yourself wondering who saw it and, if anyone did, why they wouldn’t have pointed it out. Maybe there was a barrage of IMs being sent around the office, encouraging others to notice my unzipped pants – but to not say anything. Nah.  

You find yourself wondering if people really meant it when they said, “Hey, I like your outfit.” Were they stifling a snicker because they liked my outfit + makeshift air conditioning, or did they really not see what was going on?  

Did I perhaps select a top that morning that might’ve been protectively shielding my unzipped pants all along, or had its semi-flowy nature backfired and revealed things a few times?  

And when the security guard greeted me with his daily, “Goooooooood morning, sunshine,” I wondered if he might’ve drawn out the “goooooooood” more than usual because he was, you know, distracted.  

Ugh.  

If my zipper is down, rest assured I’m not doing it intentionally – although I did date a guy years ago who liked to do this (and pull things out) after having too much to drink. Wait, disregard – he did it when he was completely sober, too.  

By the way, this zipper-gone-wild thing happened yesterday. But amazingly, it also happened again this morning.  

Yep.  

I had a streak recently where I forgot to put on my earrings for a whole week. Are my zipper shenanigans foreshadowing a streak of a different nature? Let’s hope not. Thankfully, I seem to do this once – maybe twice a year. And since I’ve checked off both annual occurrences in as many days, plus the fact that I realize a little embarrassment every now and again keeps us humble, I think I’m good for a while.  

So, thanks, zipper. Thanks for the humility.

I’m sure the world has had its faults for centuries, and maybe its issues these days just feel more in-your-face and plentiful thanks to the many news outlets, social media outlets, and every other kind of outlet that covers them in what feels like real-time.

Maybe the issues are more plentiful because there are far more people.

Maybe the issues are more plentiful because there are shows that seem to celebrate strange addictions, interventions, crimes and anything else you can think of.

Regardless, things are getting downright depressing. I don’t like what I see most of the time; the news validates on a near-daily basis why I adore my carefully crafted bubble.

There’s a reason I consume TV shows that are low-drama – I don’t like drama, period. The most drama in my day involves avoiding other drivers to and from work, or watching a cooking show to see who’s about to be chopped or best an Iron Chef. Unless they’re food-based or deal with searching for the perfect wedding dress, I rarely find reality shows entertaining since halfway through the program my shoulders will be scrunched up and my heart rate elevated. It’s usually at this point that I tune into The Weather Channel for some soothing music, courtesy of their Local on the 8s.

I knew I shouldn’t have hoofed it through Anaheim last night, especially in light of last week’s unsettling shenanigans during my nightly workout. But I did anyway, and it was sort of more of the same.

In one neighborhood, a stray dog was slinking in and out of the shadows. You know how a dog that knows its surroundings has a happy tail – a tail that says, “Hey, I’m just out cruisin’ the neighborhood, don’t mind me”? This tail was not happy. It was a nervous tail, a tail that said this pup was way out of its element. I tried to call to it, but it glanced my way with a terrified expression and took off.

As I was exiting this particular neighborhood via the one-way-in/one-way-out street, I saw a woman entering; she was on the opposite side of the street. She was shuffling along, not deliberately walking with exercise on the brain. In fact, she was wearing non-athletic clothing, boots, a jacket and had her purse slung across her body. The neighborhood was a destination, not something a casual person just passes through. I wondered if maybe her car broke down, as her posture indicated she wasn’t in the best of spirits. Or perhaps she’d gotten in a fight with someone and was trying to make her way home. As I was mentally exploring the possibilities, a minivan came flying around the corner and entered the neighborhood. I immediately connected the woman and the driver and, sure enough, turned around the look at the scene unfolding behind me. The woman turned around, saw the minivan and started to run away from it. It was dark, and not many houses were lit up. I ran away, too.

I still had a mile and a half to finish, but by this time, I just wanted to be home. I considered finishing my trek on friendlier, more well-lit streets, but my knee had suddenly had enough. Might’ve been a sign, or perhaps an obvious nudge to go home already.

Nearing the house, I saw two men pausing by telephone poles and nailing signs to them. My first thought was that they were posting a notice about a lost dog – maybe the dog that I saw a short while before. Instead, it was a sign that read, “In foreclosure?” and listed a phone number to call, as well as a fee that would need to be paid for any sort of assistance – regardless of whether or not said assistance ended up being helpful. Because people in foreclosure want to shell out more money, I’m sure.

Walking up my driveway, I heard something high overhead. Plane? No. Helicopter? Yes. It was so far away that its noise was almost hushed; it was hovering, and presumably held one or more of Anaheim PD’s finest. I’m sure they weren’t there for the fun of it, and decided there must be something in the area they were looking for. Seemed like a good time to go inside and lock the door for the night.

Foreclosure signs are, in fact, a sign of the times – although I wish I’d seen a concerned owner out soliciting help in finding a lost pet. I have no idea what became of the woman who was chased down by a minivan. Nor do I know if the helicopter found what it was looking for. And although I find myself wanting to move to the middle of nowhere more often than not these days, I do know that I am thankful for the security and peace that does exist in my life.

Every two weeks, I buy myself flowers. I like the satisfaction of taking a giant, cheap, messy, store-bought bouquet from its cellophane home, cathartically pruning, snipping and making sense of its chaos, then arranging the freshly-trimmed, cleaned-up stems in a bowl on my kitchen table. Their greeting when I walk in the back door always makes me happy.

Over the weekend, I went to the store to replenish my current, wilting assortment, and made a startling discovery: the price for my usual bouquet of basic flowers had spiked. Severely.

My mostly-filler-but-still-really-pretty bundle o’ flora had gone up to $14.99 from $8.99. Almost $15 for a hidden and bent – thus approaching death – gerbera daisy, a stem of burgundy alstroemeria, two stems of green chrysanthemums, a boatload of seeded eucalyptus filler and a smattering of red carnations. And by “smattering,” I mean two.

Highway robbery!

Most girls scoff at carnations. I, however, adore them. They’re cheap, and they last forever before they brown or faint so that, my friends, means more bang for your buck. I thought about going elsewhere to see if I could get only carnations for a fraction of the cost, but figured I might be pushing it. Besides, I’d just be wasting gas to track down flowers at a price that many florists would scoff at this time of year, this being the week of Valentine’s Day and all.

So for the record, yes, I still bought them. If I spread the cost out over the next two weeks, it would be about a dollar a day. For flowers. Which make me smile. And since my wine consumption has plummeted lately, I’m more than OK with this one-time floral fee spike.

I’d have been heartbroken if there were no flowers to be had whatsoever, so I suppose the price gouging makes me thankful that there were any to choose from at all. This time last year, I received a beautiful stem of orchids, but from an individual who ended up having a penchant for extreme kinkdom and dressing like a pirate. Makes the single life and my pricey, filler-laden bouquet even more appealing, no?

Yes.

Once upon a time, there were two best friends. Paper-pusher seemed to define one, while the other was firmly rooted in a more creative, glamorous role. On the surface, they could be known as Boring and Excitement.

Years went by with these definitions in place. The former always wanted to be like the other, and the latter seemed to have a strange hunger for a less-creative role. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, and this dynamic certainly seemed to be in play.

One evening, the two were talking. Boring said to Excitement, “I just wish I was more creative. I feel like I’m about 5%, while you’re the other 95%.”

Excitement was dumbfounded. “Are you kidding me? I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”

The two argued until it became apparent neither would win.

What’s funny is that both held the perception that they were less than what they actually were, and each saw the other in a beautiful, shimmering light — a light that’s so hard to see when we look in the mirror.

Sometimes we think we’ve been blessed with only a thimble-full of what we dream about, and it takes someone else to point out the trough we’ve been hanging out in all along. Tonight I am thankful for best friends who open our eyes, who unselfishly praise, and who unknowingly remind one another of their value — not only in the world, but to each other.

Do you ever have evenings where all your productivity feels like it has dried up, or nights when things that you’d normally do to pass the time seem full of a whole lot of nothing? No good movies on TV, only reruns of stuff I’ve already watched; I’m just tired enough to want to sleep the remaining hours of the day away to have a new day at my fingertips, but I know that I’d be up at 5am on a Sunday if I turned in now.

Spending a day in LA always wears me out. Chaos, impatient people and a symphony of honking and blaring music assault my ears – and that’s just on the freeway on my way there. City sidewalks strangle tree roots. Parking signs need to come with a set of Rosetta Stone CDs to help drivers decipher their code. Trash gathers in the gutters. Signs of homelessness are everywhere.

LA’s draw has always fascinated me. I could never live in the thick of it, but whenever I was living out of state, I’d need to see it when I’d come home for a visit. It’s beautiful when you can pull back and behold its colors, its skyline. When I’m in the middle of it, it’s suffocating to me.

On a clear day, the downtown LA skyline is visible from the top floors of our agency. I think I prefer it at that distance, although I appreciate that for others it’s a symbol of so much — dreams that can be achieved, a new start, a place with rich history. For as much as it means to others, however, I’m thankful that, for me, its beauty and meaning can be experienced and gleaned from afar.

A cold front moved in yesterday, and by evening, low-level clouds were rapidly gathering in the sky.

I stepped outside last night for a few moments, and church bells were chiming in the distance. Their ringing had a solemn, almost mourning sound.

Today was even more gray, more inclement and more cold. Frankly, it’s fitting weather for what’s been happening here recently.

Counties are on edge as police hunt for an armed man still at large, and with one hell of a plan. Police are diligently working non-stop, as they always do, but with an increased presence that you can’t miss even if you tried. The skies, after a long week of tension, decided they can’t take it anymore. They’re sad, and they are weeping for us all: for the innocent, for the wounded, for the dead, for those keeping loved ones’ memories alive.

The sadness turned to anger and reached a boiling point today; hail rained down from the heavens, accumulating as though it was a freak snowstorm. The aggravation in the atmosphere made me wonder if we wouldn’t hear the finale to a terrible week by late afternoon. No such luck yet.

Whatever the ending to this story, you know it won’t be a good one. The best we can hope for is for no more dead, no more lives stolen. Tonight, I am thankful for the tireless searching and devoted protection of the law enforcement teams who are trying to put a halt to the Southland insanity which has reigned this week. Prayers for peace, hope for resolution.

Have you ever been in a situation and thought, “There’s a reason this is happening right now”?

I found myself talking to a gentleman today at work — a gentleman with whom I’ve rarely ever spoken, aside from the occasional hallway hello.

This afternon, I took a break for a cup of coffee. He was in the kitchen.

“How did you ever start doing what you’re doing?” I asked him of his role in the company.

He explained how he started out as a chemist and, he joked, since most chemists seem to always end up being something else, he ultimately ended up in a completely different field.

He went on to say that he and his wife are complete opposites, explaining that his wife knew from age 11 that she wanted to be a nurse. He, however, didn’t find his current line of work until well into his professional years.

Some more small talk about his wife continued, and he said that she’s basically retired these days but takes care of their daughter. Who is autistic. And 19. And that their daughter will never be able to live on her own.

“It’s really something that your wife is able to do that, to be in a position to take care of her around the clock,” I said. I couldn’t find any better words at that moment, because — honestly — what do you say to someone who is sharing something so personal?

Others’ personal moments always seem to dumbfound me, because I wish I had more of an authentic, raw and honest streak than I do so that I’d be better at giving an authentic, honest, heart-felt reply. What can I say to someone to express how thankful I was right then and there that people like them — him, his wife — exist in the world and are living proof that there is still such deep love and devotion, care and empathy? My brain was spinning. It was mushy and grateful, and I started hearing every other word he was saying.

I sometimes picture myself as a parent, which is a painfully foreign concept to me. I’ve never had dreams of being a mother, and I never had a doll that I doted on and carted around in a stroller as those she was my own. Of my inability to picture myself as a mom, my own mother speculates that it’s because I haven’t met the person yet with whom I can picture starting a family; I don’t know if it’s that, or if it goes deeper. Regardless, when I do picture it, I doubt my ability to be a good mom. I doubt it because I hate confrontation with others, and I can be incredibly avoidant. How am I supposed to guide someone through life with my penchant for letting things be?

I also doubt my parenting abilities because I’m selfish. I like time to sit and think, to write and do nothing, to play music for hours on end and to walk until my knees feel like they’re disintegrating beneath my flesh. I like that if I want to have a glass of wine, a piece of cheese and a few crackers for dinner, nobody can tell me that I’m setting a bad example. Or that if I wanted to have a Twix bar and water as my evening meal, nobody can wonder what I must be feeding a miniature human being. And, for as wrong and self-centered as this may sound, I can’t imagine not being able to do those very things whenever I want to.

And then there are those times when I see a mother ignoring her young children on the sidewalk as they run ahead of her along a busy street, smashing plants and bushes with a baseball bat while she’s too engrossed in her mobile device to be bothered. There are the times when I see parents’ rage directed at a child too small to understand what they did wrong, let alone where their parents are coming from, and all the child can do is dissolve into a puddle of tears as even more anger is directed at it. Those are the times that I can picture myself as a mom, and I want to snatch those kids up, remove them from their parents’ houses and give them the attention, love and respectful discipline that they deserve. I don’t know what it says about me that examples of parents on the brink of a meltdown make me finally picture myself as one, but it is what it is.

As my coworker was finishing up what he was saying, I did catch his final few words before we parted ways.

“You know, she’ll outlive us — so we’ll have to figure that out someday. But it’s all good, because sometimes God gives us something so that you can see everything else in a new perspective.”

I promptly went back to being dumbfounded, once again not knowing what to say, other than, “True. Very true.”

He left, and I paused in the kitchen for a few more seconds. Yep, God had just given me a spontaneous discussion with a man I’ve never spoken more than one or two words to, and it gave me a new perspective, indeed. On a lot of things.

And for that new perspective, I am thankful.