Finally Friday

For those of us who work a traditional five-day week, Friday brings the welcome denouement of our five days of travail. Add to that a Monday holiday (like the upcoming Memorial Day here in the U.S.), and a very lovely triad of days off beckons like a siren to a wayward ship.

My personal vessel feels rather happily tired tonight. I started the day with a very useful and growthful hour of good ol' psychotherapy. Next was a consult with my new gastroenterologist (see this post for the run-down of my own healthcare cast of characters). Five hours of work felt amazingly like eight, and then the sleepy drive home delivered me for a delicious hour's nap in the hammock. Sixteen laps in the pool at the nearby health club roused me from my torpor, and now as bedtime nears, my body is readying for sleep. How lucky am I?

There are many blessings to count in the preceding paragraphs. First, I have gainful employment with weekends off. Second, I have the absolute blessing of health insurance, allowing me the relative luxury of psychotherapy and gastroenterology for the asking. I have a reliable car to get me to and from these activities, and a home where a comfy hammock awaits my weary body. Toss in the health club and a quiet place to sleep, and there you have a person who has a better standard of living than probably 90% of the world's population (at least). That is not a notion to take lightly.

So, I am happy that it's Friday and that there are three blissfully long days to fill with as little or as much activity as I like. If I was disabled, poor, infirm, or living in a war zone, all of the above undertakings would seem like something one could only dream about.

Speaking of dreams, I ran into a doctor yesterday at the clinic who only comes to see patients for surgical consults every two weeks. "David!" I said. "How are you?" He shook my hand and replied, "So, are you living the dream?" I thought for a second, caught off guard, and said, "Yeah. I guess I am."

The dream is what we make it, apparently. No one put me here. No one forced my hand. To paraphrase (and contradict) David Byrne, I would say, "This is my beautiful house. This is my beautiful wife." And then, if I were smart, I'd get down on my knees and thank my lucky stars for my very own embarrassment of riches.