You’re Alive Enough

No one is making a mental note of all the things you didn’t accomplish last year.

Well, except you, of course.

The first draft of the book that you hated the moment you started writing it,

the workout you were promised you’d fall in love with if you just kept at it.

If you kept at the diet,

if you kept at knitting that godforsaken scarf,

if you kept at the daily journaling,

the monthly book clubs,

you’d still feel unfinished.
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It’s enough to simply be part of passing time,

to celebrate another birthday,

another year of loving and being loved,

another year spent nourishing your body enough to keep it alive.
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On a particularly good day, you tried a new café,

your dog did something exceptionally cute,

the recipe turned out even better than expected,

you broke a sweat doing something hard,

you looked in the mirror and liked what you saw.
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Perhaps on a great day, you came home to flowers,

your dad got good news from the doctor,

your friend had her baby,

you laughed so hard that you cried.
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But on any ordinary day,

your husband looked at you with the same eyes he looked at you with on your wedding day,

blood pumped throughout your body involuntarily,

somebody thought of you, even on those days when you felt completely alone, you crossed somebody's mind.

On any ordinary day, your body rose out of bed to the same world where all your good and great days took place.
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So another year ended with no finished manuscript,

no new hobby perfected.

There was, yet again, no great epiphany,

but you were alive enough.