Taking Things For Granted

She is the goddess of power:
earth's mothering power,
soil's nurturing power,
grain's sustaining power.
We see her in the stars,
taming dragons and riding
them, bits between their teeth.
We see her on earth too:
giving seeds to strong farmers
and princes, commanding them
to sow not only the fertile soil,
but raw earth too, which bears
exactly as she tells it to.

--Ovid, Metamorphoses

Take nothing for granted; the best job, the perfect spouse, the ideal home...

So another Friday the thirteens comes and goes without too much incident... without incident at all really. I'm not usually so superstitious, so I don't understand why this particular superstition bothers me so much. Thinking on that I guess it's because so much of my early life revolved around the weekends, which began for me on a Friday afternoon I suppose. When I was little, each weekend would be spent with Grandma, unless something went wrong in which case we would have to stay home with Mum and Dad. It was a treat, and I guess, back then, I would always take it for granted that, when Friday came, we would go to Grandma's house and stay there until Mum came to get us on Sunday. When that didn't happen like it was 'supposed to' I would get sulky, rail at the universe as if it were some kind of divine right that I could spend the weekend where I could be 'spoiled' or at the very least stay up late and do what I wanted.

Now though, I have learned, through age and experience to take nothing for granted. I've learned that treats and privileges must be earned - in one way or another. That those people who are special to us, in our lives, are precious, and should be loved and nurtured. I try to do this whenever I can.

I suppose another thing that helps me to appreciate the life I have, and the love in it is that the one person who is the most important to me in the world, is, more often than not, half a world away. We get to see each other only for a week or so at a time, and as such, to me at least, every chance we get to spend time together is precious.

There have been adjustments I've had to make in that regard, too. I think the biggest one has been accepting that I can't have every moment that she's home with her awake and dancing attendance on my every whim. Not that I ever expect that anyway, no matter how it might seem. She's said in the past that she feels it's a romantic thing to be able to fall asleep in an evening, take a nap, knowing that I'm there, comforted by that fact... and slowly I've become more okay with that, more in tune with that - slowly coming into that feeling. And honestly, I want her to be able to rest when and if she needs to. Sure there's still a selfish little voice in there somewhere that insinuates the 'what about me?' whine - for whatever reason - but on the whole being able to be there beside her, doing whatever it is I'm doing to stay quiet and not disturb her rest, whether that's reading or using the computer, it's become a comfort of sorts for me as well.

Have to stop planning to much though. I've tried not to be too frustrated this week as the majority of what I had planned, or wanted to do, (I was told that I was in charge of what we did), has had to be adjusted, rethought or just plain abandoned - through one thing and another, but still, one of these times I'm there we'll have a time we can share without having to run around like crazy chickens with their heads cut off - and maybe even at some point the weather will cooperate too. :P