Yesterday had some rough moments for sure. Rough moments in my classrooms turned into rough patches in my heart, which then turned into rough mom and wife vibes in my home, which flowed right into rough self-talk and feelings of inevitable future doom.

That rolling stone certainly gathered moss of a terrible kind. I’m still dealing with the effects of it in the daylight today, trying hard to separate truth from fears, reality from pessimism.

Despite the weight of some ick, I had four bright shiny points in my day that a little voice keeps telling me to write down. So here I go.

One. I find myself in a work position where I get to rub shoulders with someone I love very much but haven’t seen a lot in recent years. The girls who lived next door to me on South 8th—the Grand girls—are family. We did a lot of life together in those years! So yesterday when Joie and I got down to our deepest selves in a 30 Second Dance Party? Well, it connected a lot of dots and brought a lot of joy. The memory of it will always make me deeply happy. (I highly recommend teacher dancing before school to remind yourself you’re not just who these young kids think you are.)

Two. A student brought me my favorite candy and my heart exploded. In that moment I had zero idea how he knew that I loved Neccos (turns out his teacher mama told him) and all the heart emojis were floating around me in joy. Suffice to say that zero of my students had ever tasted a Necco, so later, when I broke them out and shared them it was a sweet moment. Mega warm fuzzies still.

Three. I love Lynn Locklear more than I even like most people. We’ve got a rapport that comes with years of working alongside each other in the Zion Church office, and yes, perhaps I’m using the word “working” a little loosely. Lynn says her productivity massively increased after I left, but I’d like to believe the positivity we generated in that space made all our conversations and laughter completely worth it. So while I was emailing Lynn—something that doesn’t happen that often anymore—I actually ran into her at the checkout counter of a bookstore. Total goodness.

And four. Word games are my jam. I love books. I love words. I could study etymology the rest of my life and be a happy camper. So last night as I was telling my family about an urgent GI situation mid school commute that day, we laughed ourselves silly about how I bought snacks at a gas station in order to justify my run to their restroom. “Post doo-doo Dew dues” was what we came up with and it is still making me giggle. So absurd, but how worth it to have a moment of laughing hard with my favorite people. 

Laughter scares the blues away. Joy scatters the ugliness and lets the sunshine through. Counting our blessings just makes good sense.