Sometimes people get gifts they don’t want, so they just give them to someone else. Christmas is a great excuse for this practice of “re-gifting.”<\/p>\n
That happened to me today.<\/p>\n
I woke to a rainy, misty day on the mountain.\u00a0I got up because my back was aching to move.<\/p>\n
I was very slow, still a little stiff all over from yesterday, my first day of weight-lifting since mid-November.<\/p>\n
I made some plain oatmeal for breakfast. My stomach was rebelling about the sudden influx of candy the night before, since it’s rare for me to eat sugar of any kind.<\/p>\n
Tom and I lounged and chatted over coffee. We read. I kept interrupting him with questions from my statistics book<\/a>, then had to stop studying because my head couldn’t take it.<\/p>\n Tom had planned to hike, and I thought I might take a walk, but it has been pouring all day.<\/p>\n We ate Christmas Eve leftovers for lunch, and suffered consequences: two of the side dishes contained wheat flour, which we haven’t eaten in several years. Though a small amount would be OK, the cumulative effect of two meals was severe.<\/p>\n We will eventually get around to watching a movie, but that will be about it for the day.<\/p>\n We had no Christmas tree<\/a> and there were no gifts under it.<\/p>\n Does this sound like a terrible, dreary Christmas? Or maybe just a very boring Christmas?<\/p>\n Not for me. Today is extraordinary and every moment of it has been a miracle. I’m smiling as I write this blog post.<\/p>\n I’m alive.<\/p>\n I can walk, talk, cook, eat, read, write, learn, solve problems.<\/p>\n I’m safe and warm and dry and have plenty of food.<\/p>\n I’m basically very healthy, I have decent health insurance and got excellent medical care.<\/p>\n I have a job with colleagues whom I treasure, just waiting for my return.<\/p>\n I have wonderful family, friends, and most of all Tom, who helped me through these last six weeks.<\/p>\n I have many months of recovery ahead that will no doubt teach me even more lessons – perhaps even patience.<\/p>\n I’m alive.<\/p>\n I remember more than a few depressed holidays that I had when I was much younger. I had a lot more going for me physically than I do today. And back then I had a lot more years ahead of me, which I often felt that I didn’t want.<\/p>\n Everywhere in the world, today and every day, there are people who don’t want whatever life they’ve been given. And, one way or another, they throw it away.<\/p>\n I almost did, long ago.<\/p>\n But on Nov. 15, 2015, I really wanted to live. I did not want to die on the kitchen floor<\/a>. And, by whatever powers decide these things, I am alive.<\/p>\n Thank you for the re-gift, universe.<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 2015. This blog started on the day I turned 56, and I am still celebrating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes people get gifts they don’t want, so they just give them to someone else. Christmas is a great excuse for this practice of “re-gifting.” That happened to me today. I woke to a rainy, misty day on the mountain.\u00a0I got up because my back was aching to move. I was very slow, still a … read more Re-gifted<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317],"tags":[67,493,121,105,442,123,494,350,80,504,62],"class_list":["post-6266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","tag-67","tag-brain","tag-christmas","tag-death","tag-depression","tag-gift","tag-gratitude","tag-holiday","tag-life","tag-recovery","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6266"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6280,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266\/revisions\/6280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}