Today started like most Fridays seem to for me: not well.  At 7 am, the phone rang. What kind of crazy-ass vampire would be calling and waking me up at that God-forsaken hour?  Oh, my coworker.  The one who likes they way I do her job so much better than the way she does it.  The coworker who was calling to tell me (for at least the tenth time since I’ve worked with her in the past couple of years) that she won’t be coming in today. And who can blame her?  How can one possibly be expected to work WITH A HEAD COLD?

A couple of hours later, I was sitting in Health Services waiting for my yearly, NYU-mandated physical.  After having received two phone calls between 11:00 and 11:10 reminding me that my appointment was at 11:15.  The 11:10 call was my favorite–she had left a message (since I was in transit, climbing the two flights of stairs to the clinic three minutes away, without my phone) informing me it was 11:15 and I was late for my appointment.  And then when I got there I was treated to a thirty-minute wait next to the desk of a haughty woman who constantly muttered under her breath about everyone else who wasn’t doing their job.  (“Makes me sick.  Acting like they’re in kindergarten and they’re supposed to be adults.  Makes me sick!”) When I asked her how much longer she thought it would be, I was informed that everyone is human and sometimes people get backed up because everyone can make mistakes and we’re all just human.  She was a couple of feet from me, sitting at the same height as I was, but her tone conveyed that she was staring down her nose at me from ten feet above.  I thought about how, if this career didn’t work out for her, she would be perfect for the post office.  I thought this so that I wouldn’t have to think about how much I can resemble her at times.

I left a few minutes later, huffing under my breath about people who don’t do their job and wondering when Jesus was going to do that thing I asked him to do: make me permanently, constantly aware of the fact that he is bigger than all the crap details of my day and the assholes who fill it.  Winter has gotten the best of me yet again (at least that’s my excuse this time of year) and my self-righteous indignation reserves are at an all-time high.  I’ve even gotten into the obnoxious habit of, whenever something ticks me off (this can be anything from incessant horns blowing on the street to the toilet paper breaking off before I said it could), saying to myself through clenched teeth, “Seriously?” in my most sarcastic tone.  And today, for the first time, the thought crept into my consciousness that God may not love that habit.  What with the sarcasm dripping from it at near-toxic levels, and the entitlement to only good things implied in its utterance.  And a thought followed right behind that first thought: that maybe that whole attitude is standing right in the path of that prayer being answered.  And a final thought (a thought train!) to top it all off: sometimes I’m the biggest asshole filling my day.

Because then I got back down to the ninth floor, and what should be waiting for me but the most beautifully arranged dozen red roses in the history of floral arrangements, and an entire department of people hovering around them, waiting for their recipient to open the card.  My card.  Once again, the BF shows up to remind me of all that’s going right.

Let it be noted that I am well aware I am marrying out of my league here.  This is a guy who apologizes to the homeless people he doesn’t give money to; meanwhile, I’m walking down the street just daring people to step in my path so I can reach out and punch someone.  As I lugged my three-foot-high garden home, I thought about how ungrateful and hurtful it would be to the BF if I came home and thanked him briefly for the flowers, then went on at length about my craptastic day.  How much disregard that would show for his consistent, overflowing regard.  And I realized how often that same disregard constitutes the bulk of my interaction with someone who loves me even more and better than the BF does, shockingly.  Someone who, I’m convinced, sent me an arrangement of his own–in the form of the most amazing man I know–to remind me what it means to be better than what’s around you.