This sporting strife

I give thanks I went to the party...I met some nice people and ate some nice food (with some to bring home too!) though, as usually happens when I mingle in new circles, I came home feeling a bit of a failure, well a lot of a failure in fact. So I give thanks, when waking up sad about that this morning, I remembered the line about triumph and disaster in Rudyard Kipling's If, and finding the poem to read again. For reminding myself though they are the bits that show, material and social success aren't the only things that matter in the world and indeed, unseen, others may also believe they are not doing as well as they could or should.

I give thanks I turned down the opportunity to look round some local gardens. Being low is very tiring and my envy levels are already way too high!

I give thanks for trying a self help book though it didn't help at all. For realising what I most wanted of all wanted to do today (out of the small range of feasible possibilities I could come up with) was compose and create some music... and for filling in a few hours wandering round the internet trying to find some software to make that happen without a small orchestra in my employ. Though failing to find any way of playing so much as a single note, I give thanks for a fine idea...and that by the time I'd given up it was time to watch the afternoon's sporting strife instead. I give thanks for managing to coax the TV aerial into co-operation (most of the time) again, firing up the headphones in case the neighbours got too loud...and not needing them (yet).

I give thanks for an excellent Queen's singles final to distract me from my distresses, followed by catching up on probably the most eventful F1 race ever. I give thanks for proud parents watching, it always moves me knowing they're there and they care whatever the outcome, even though (or maybe because?) I've no idea what it's like to be a cherished adult child.

I give thanks for folk sharing pictures of the good things they've been doing, great places they have been...and espeially those who take the time to spare a kind word or two. I give thanks for a day off trying to make things better...and for quite a lot of it managing not to think about how bad they seem.