LUCKY

I'm so lucky

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I'm so lucky 〰️

As I took the 30-minute drive to work, I was articulating in my mind the list of inconveniences I had already faced that day, and it was not even 10 a.m. yet.

My body ached, and my eyes were deprived of sleep. I had slept, and slept for long, but it was the type of sleep that takes from you instead of restoring you. The sleep you never wake up from, because you never really slept.

I felt sorry for myself. How awful it was that my boss demanded I go to work. Even though I had a month-long vacation, I wasn’t ready to go back.

My grip on the steering wheel tightened. I was angry that my whole life was about to change, and yet no one seemed to accommodate the storm that came with it. Angry that I am so unfortunate, that happy things never arrive for me without being intricately interwoven with some sort of complication.

That my current life was expected to resume as if I had a normal amount of resources.
But I didn’t. I was tired. I didn’t have the time, or energy, or will to be anywhere near alive today.

Why do sweet things always have to be lined with sourness for me?
Why do I have to work so hard all the time?
I’m tired of making lemonade.
Today, I want to crush the lemons whole, let the sourness seep between my fingers, and drip onto the whole world.

The traffic slowed to a halt, and I was even more sorrowful. Not only did I have to waste so much time driving to work every day, but now my commute was even longer because of this traffic?

My bitterness was simmering so unrelentingly, the acid bubbling up my throat. This, on top of it all?

But then, in the midst of the congestion in my mind and on the road, I saw you across the street.

Everything stopped.
All the thoughts fluttering angrily around me dropped dead.
A flock of birds had gone down in a blink.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

How you barely showed. Indistinguishable matter. An object or a person, if it wasn’t for your head peeking through the fabric. A scrap, probably sourced frantically from the vehicles nearby, barely enough to cover you fully.

Your bald spot shone under the sunbeams, dancing along as if nothing had happened.

Your face was down on the gravel.
The gravel was rough on your skin.

Even though I never saw your eyes, I know they were closed.
I wonder what hid behind those eyes.

Your blue shirt, ironed and creaseless.
You buttoned your cuffs.
You were on your way to work, but you never made it.

It wasn’t a dream job. It was the type of job you took out of necessity, but still tried your best.
You never took days off, and your commitment was unshakable. Until today.

Today, you didn’t make it on the dot.
Today, you did not greet your coworkers with a smile despite the wounds you hid deep behind your teeth.

Today, you did not rely on your devotion to providing for your family to keep you going.
To push through the burden.
Even if you had to limp, you would have made it through the day.

Today, you were stuck here.
In the middle of traffic.
Face down.
Dead.

And I was looking at you across the street, dressed in my privilege from head to toe.

I felt instantly terrified.
I wanted to apologize to God for being so awful.
I felt the thoughts I had not even a second ago were a disease, spreading fast through me.
I wanted to be rid of it.
I wanted to apologize to my heart for painting my life so gray.
To my eyes, for allowing them to see circumstances through the ugly lens of ungratefulness.

I am so lucky I have a job.
I am so lucky I have a job I love.
I am so lucky that I get to eat, sleep, and heal normally, even if I didn’t have a job.
I am so lucky that my source of tiredness is chasing my dreams.
I am so lucky to love and be loved.
I am so lucky to be busy, to have no time at all, because I am stretching being alive and squeezing every last drop of it.
I am so lucky to have the luxury of dreaming big.
I am so lucky to have the ability to work hard.
I am so lucky to have a guaranteed bed to go to every night.
I am so lucky there is not a family across the world I need to feed.
I am so lucky to have solvable problems.
I am so lucky to be here, now.
I am so lucky to be stuck in traffic rather than to be the cause of it.

I still think about you.
Who you could have been.
Where you were supposed to go.
Who lost you.
How does your loss feel?

Thinking of you makes me feel both sorrow and hope.
A juxtaposition laced with irony.

Doesn’t life work in mysterious ways?
The things you despise, the things you complain about, become the very things you cling to.
They give you an instant rush of safety and gratitude.

How in a single second, your whole perspective changes.
And accordingly, the rhythm of your body and your posture shifts in a flash.
Your readiness for the day instantly turns on.

I am so lucky.
I will pray for you every time I forget how lucky I am and you remind me.

الحمدلله دائمًا وأبدًا