Finding Gratitude in a Hurricane

 
It's Tuesday afternoon, the day after Hurricane Sandy. A storm that knocked out our transit system, killed a few people, flooded Manhattan, and left thousands of people without power.

But I'm fine.

We had no flooding. We never lost power. Our internet was a little slow all day, but our internet is slow a lot of the time (thanks, Time Warner).

My roommates and I spent the day playing video games, drinking beer, making t-shirts and playing with glow sticks.

Last night, I sat in my room watching Breaking Bad and nursing a hangover headache. With 4 minutes left of a particularly exciting episode, my adrenaline at nearly through-the-roof levels...the episode just stopped. I tried for half an hour to find another site that would let me watch the last 4 minutes, but I couldn't. So I googled a recap, read the insanely unpredictable events that transpired in those last key moments, and was immediately upset at the fact that I had to read, and not see, what happened.

And then I remembered how lucky I was that these were the worst problems I faced all day.

Throughout the day I got text messages and gchats from friends in other parts of the country asking how I was doing. My responses were always upbeat, because everything was always fine.

I'm sure I speak for a lot of Brooklynites who didn't lose power and didn't see any real damage when I say that I am extremely grateful that I somehow managed to dodge what could have been a really shitty bullet. I don't know how long it's going to take for power to be restored for my parents in New Jersey or my friends in Manhattan or at NYU Hospital, where patients had to be evacuated down 9 flights of stairs in the storm. There's still no timetable for when the subway is going to be up and running again, or for when the hustle and bustle of New York life is going to be back to normal.

Molly at Stratejoy talks a lot about gratitude. About being thankful for even the little things in your world that make you happy. I've been part of the Stratejoy tribe for about a year and a half and I don't think this message ever really resonated with me until now. Because in the midst of everything going on in my city, and knowing that the only damage I suffered was the cancellation of my full week of Halloween plans, I cannot help but be grateful for how lucky I am.

I hope all my fellow East Coasters are doing okay! Let me know how you fared in this crazy weather, everyone.

**This is my new series called Stratejoy Monday. To learn more about all this goodness, see the first 5 months of my Stratejoy journey here.