A better reflection

McKenna Snow
Class of 2024

(11/2021) That day offered such an opportunity to be grumpy. Oh, it was almost too easy! There was so much to be negative about.

For starters, it was raining outside. I couldn’t stand the rain. And yet I had to walk back from class to my dorm in it, and I had forgotten an umbrella. The weather should’ve known by then that I often forgot my umbrella.

Rain is so rude, I thought to myself. It fills the sidewalks with puddles, it makes everything muddy. It makes my hair wet, and it’s responsible for how frizzy it becomes when it dries.

Oh, and my shoes! I thought. My shoes have become wet too. And my socks. Is there anything worse than wet socks?

I saw that the volleyball court, full of sand, was all wet. Who likes to play in wet sand? I thought grumbly. What fun is it to play in the rain?

Ooh, my list could go on, I thought, seething. I think I will let it go on. I had worked myself up well enough to accomplish that. I thought that I had nothing better to do with my day than to be grumpy as I walked back to my dorm, becoming more and more wet. Ungratefulness is so much more interesting to reflect on than thankfulness, I mused to myself.

And the trees! These great green trees were all wet and drippy! Their leaves were falling down faster with this wind—didn’t the weather know I wanted the red leaves to stay on the trees for longer than this?

All these other people remembered raincoats and umbrellas, I thought bitterly, looking around. If people were truly nice, they’d see me walking along with nothing but my knitted sweater and they’d offer me their umbrella. I was entirely comfortable with the conviction that I couldn’t be thankful for any of these people until they did something that benefitted me.

I continued to walk along, steeping in my own negativity like a bitter black tea. I was looking forward to getting back to my dorm, to drying off, and to getting-out-of-this-rain!

Finally, I arrived. Shuffling inside, I took off my shoes at the door so they wouldn’t get my carpet all wet. The room was small, but I still tried to care about the cleanliness. My roommate cared immensely about the cleanliness too.

She was there when I arrived, reading on her bed. She was used to me arriving in a bit of a bad mood, about one thing or another. She wasn’t surprised when I showed up that blistery November day, very upset with the rain.

The lighting in the room was soft from the many Christmas lights she had decorated the place with. They replaced the overhead light well. In any other mood, the lighting and the rain would’ve struck me as cozy and nice, but I was too upset with the rain to really appreciate it.

"How was your day?" my roommate asked me innocently, though she could already deduce what was on my heart.

"Just awful," I said, solely because of the rain. "My life is so hard and challenging. The rain is just ridiculous, especially at a time close to finals like this."

"I know how you feel, life can be stressful," she answered.

"You couldn’t possibly have it as hard as I do," I said. As sophomores, she was my roommate last year and knew me well enough not to take this too personally. I was typically the more cynical, pessimistic one, and tended to let my bad moods get the better of me. She had tried often to help me in this worldview, but I remained staunchly rooted in my determination to be ungrateful. I found it more gratifying, in a way.

"You know, you really don’t have it that bad," she said after a moment of quiet. "You might have personal life problems that make it hard, but so do I, so does everybody. But to go about like you’re some miserable forsaken person without actually appreciating what you have is going to make you miss out on so much good in your life."

"So what?" I spoke.

She paused and thought hard. Then she said, "I heard this at a talk a while ago, and I think about it a lot. I don’t know who said it, but basically, they posed the question: if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you are thankful for today, how much would you wake up with?"

The silence hung in the air for a minute as I thought about it.

"I wouldn’t have my socks," I said.

"Even though they’re wet right now, you’d still want them, right?"

"I guess so." I hate how sneakers feel without socks—it’s just wrong.

"What else would you want to wake up with?"

"Air conditioning," I answered. "Oh, and heating." Suddenly I looked around and saw many things I needed to ensure I was thankful for. My bed. My sheets. My blankets. My computer, books, phone. My clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, running water, a room that was mine, and I thought about that volleyball net my friends and I used sometimes. Then I thought of those students I saw that all had their own umbrellas and raincoats—regardless of if it benefitted me or not, I needed to be thankful that they could come to a university, like me, and could all have umbrellas.

Then I thought of my roommate, who was willing to put up with me in all my negativity. How lucky was I, really, to have her as my friend.

My roommate had a gentle, thoughtful nature. She thought for a little while in silence with me. The rain tapped on our window, still coming down as hard as ever.

"I’d want to make sure all my friends and family were there, too," she said.

This comment made me panic. "I need to remember my family," I said suddenly. "What if I woke up without them because I wasn’t grateful enough for them?"

"I don’t know, you tell me," she said. "What if you woke up without any rain?"

"I would be happy about that."

"But what about the cows? They need the rain so they can take a bath. And the grass outside, that needs rain too. And the trees."

Oh, the trees, I thought guiltily. Wasn’t I mad about those earlier? What if I woke up and there were no trees?

It took me awhile, but it became so clear to me that I couldn’t afford to keep taking all that I had for granted. In hindsight, I really do have it so good in so many ways. Being grumpy might’ve been more entertaining, in one sense. But that attitude really only got me so far. Thankfulness was something I needed to intentionally practice to really treasure that which was important to me. Especially my roommate, despite her sometimes annoyingly-mothering demeanor. At least she was kind enough to be my friend even while I had so much growing to do.

"Why’d you do that?" I said to my roommate.

"Do what?"

"Now I have to be grateful for everything."

She smiled. "That’s the spirit." She went back to reading.

I went over to my bed and sat down, to listen to the rain.