Day 14, Today I am grateful for modern medicine. GCB has been sick this week, and I’m incredibly grateful for drugs (thank you acetaminophen and naproxen) that help bring his fever down and stop his aches. He has been adorably pitiful and has kept me up a few nights–to the point of waking up in the middle of the night, whining, “I JUST. CAN’T. SLEEP anymore,” then promptly rolling over and falling back to sleep–but it’s all been worth it to see and hear him feel better.

Day 15, Today I am grateful to be alive. I know that seems like both a cop-out as well as a repeat of the one I did on my birthday, but lately it’s been so very apparent that this whole living thing is awesome. I found out a few days ago that a former coworker of mine passed away recently. He was 31.

Thirty-one is young (despite what I tell GCB about his upcoming 30th birthday). Too young. Far too young to be found unresponsive on a cold Saturday morning in Michigan.

His death hasn’t come as quite the shock that Kelly’s did a couple years ago, but it’s still weird. One day they’re here, next day they’re not. Quick as that.

And yet I’m still here.

I’ve been thinking a lot about him, and thankfully there aren’t the questions this time that there were with Kelly. I’m not worrying if there was anything I could possibly have done to make the outcome different.

It’s odd. When Kelly died I found this FIRE in me to get out and live every single day to be fuller than ever. This time that intensity isn’t there. What IS there is a desire to not take for granted what I do have, even if those days and those moments aren’t necessarily parade-worthy.

Though my accidentally-slept-through-lifting-session-being-replaced-by-PB&J tonight is still somehow really awesome.

You love PB&J, don’t lie.

So I’m going to just enjoy it. I’m going to mentally prepare myself to run 15 miles on Sunday (!!!!!) and watch Project Runway All-Stars and eat my PB&J. And then when GCB gets home, I’m going to kiss him and hold onto him maybe a little longer than I would normally. Because I’m still here. And he’s still here.

And that, my friends, is so much to be grateful for.