What A Beautiful Day

"I see the bird with a leaf in her mouth, After the flood all the colors came out, It was a beautiful day, Don't let it get away, Beautiful day..." -Beautiful Day by U2

     This morning I woke up at 7:07 and pressed the snooze button on my phone twice.  I was so exhausted that I don't actually really recall my first class much at all, except that I was cramming as much as I could fit into my sleepy brain for my next class where I had my second midterm of the year.

     Once I arrived in my British Lit to 1798 class immediately after my first class I hardly had any time to finish reviewing my study guide.  After an hour and twenty minutes (five longer than the class was actaully supposed to last) I left the building with quotes from Dr. Faustus and King Lear floating around in my head and my hand flexing to relieve the writer's cramp it had gotten from nine paragraphs.  Hoping that my paragraphs would sound better to her than they did while I was writing them, and that I got at least some of the short answers and fill in the blanks right, I clutched my jacket  around me as I walked back to my dorm and looked up at the grey sky, my whole body aching from dodgeball last night.

[picture from here]

     I got back to my room after waiting several minutes for the one working elevator to arrive and watched How I Met Your Mother season 4 for the rest of the day (except for my lunch break).  Then at 8:05 I realized it might be time for dinner and decided to go the lazy way.  I grabbed a soup out of my food stash and began opening it on my desk.  To my great dismay it exploded on opening and I got raw chicken noodle soup broth all over my laptop.  Panicking my hands flew to grab napkins but not before my middle finger on my left hand grazed the sharp edge of my soup's tab.  I now have a deepish gash from side to side on my fingertip that loves to bleed.  

     After sopping up the broth off my laptop I figured that washing out the blood/chicken soup mix that had pooled in my wound would probably be a good idea.  But after running it under the faucet, cursing the water to hell and jumping up and down whilst clutching my burning hand I realized that might not have been the best way.  I put a bandaid onto my throbbing finger and almost burned my tongue on my steaming hot soup.  

     Grumbling to myself how this day turned out pretty crappy I logged onto facebook to see what was up with others and with the intention to complain about my misfortunes on my status.  I checked my updates first and saw Krista commented back on her status from earlier.  She had simply written "beautiful day" as her status and I'd pretty sourly retorted "not here. is cloudy :(".  To which she responded "oh its gross outside- smells like ass. its a beautiful day in my heart lol".   I thought to myself how wonderful of a look that is but didn't explore the thought further, probably because I was distracted with concern as to why her campus smells like ass and wondering how many asses she's smelled to make a honest comparison.

     After commenting back I went onto deviantart and started perusing the daily deviations.  One caught my eye with its bright colors and strangely relevant title "it's a beautiful day..".  I clicked on it and the page opened to a wonderful typography work that read "it's a beautiful day if you want it to be " 

 [click THIS; it's a link to the picture]

What a wonderful quote!  And just like that I realized that how awesome or beautiful a day is is totally up to you and your judgement/mood.  I'd started the day off in a negative manner so the rest of the day seemed to be down and crappy.  But looking back I see that today wasn't horrible at all. 

     This morning I woke up after the longest night's sleep I've had in about a week.  I had studied days before today for the midterm and felt semi-confident that I wouldn't completely bomb it.  I got out of my room on time and although it was a bit chilly with a low of 47 degrees today, it was warmer than most days lately and I didn't see my breath while walking to class.  I arrived to Brit Lit already knowing everything I could cram and found the essay part pretty easily done with some creative thinking and bs-ing. (Hey, I'm not gonna lie.)  Although I did get out of the class five minutes late, that's five more minutes I got to spend working on bettering my test.  I then stopped by the post office and was excited to see I got a card from my Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Zina- receiving mail is always fun!

     I got back to my room and for the first time since thursday was able to relax and not worry about an upcoming class.  I've been chilling all day watching season 4 of HIMYM that I got for my birthday yesterday.  For lunch I had a hot dog and the fries were fresh and warm.  I remembered not to pour the salt on which greatly diminished my salt intake.  I ate five strawberries today, two of them covered in chocolate and ate a piece off of my Godiva bar.  My dinner, though initially too hot, soon cooled down and was delicious, giving me a warm soup belly.  And then I went on facebook and saw Krista's comment and onto deviantart and found the piece of art that made me rethink my day, making me realize today was pretty cool.  Yay for today!  

     So rethink your day.  If you're already having a fantastic day, good for you!  If your day was a downer, look back and think about all the good things that happened.  Reflect on how this day could've maybe been worse and you'll appreciate how it really went.  That grey rainy day may actually produce a breath-taking rainbow.  Because, really, every day is a beautiful day- it's just up to you to realize it. 

"You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one.  Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own.  It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle."  -Paulo Coelho

[picture from here]