Everyone not so nice nice

Before a really nice colleague of mine left her job a couple of months ago, she left a couple of albums on the shared drive for me to listen to. I am really old school with lots of things, and one is digital music - I mean the MP3 kind (I did and still do master CDs! Although I am generation tape and even LP!). One is Regina Spektor, whom I find really funny and nice to listen to. I was thinking of lyrics from her song just now (…everyone not so nice nice…or at least that's what I hear or remember, maybe she really sings something completely different - you know those amazingly funny subtitles to what people think are sung in songs, or when you read the real subtitles and realize you've heard something wrong for decades!).

So, the thing is, everyone is not so nice (nice) at the moment. My friends are lovely (thank you!!!), as is my family (thank you!!!), and that is what counts. But it's a bit like eating a lovely chocolate muffin, and then you bite into a rotten rat. Or you are dancing and twirling to lovely music barefoot, and stumble on glass splinters. Or you're strolling in your cotton summer dress down the street in the evening summer sun, and a car drives past and someone throws up all over your feet. Or you've spent a long evenings - months - of your private time contributing to making your company's work that tiny bit better, to be told one day when you are leaving that you didn't offer any value, that you took it too easy, that you didn't do your share.

That's the way life is. Everyone's not so nice nice, at least not all the time. The baker may have forgotten to close the door, and a rat slept in without notice (probably a tiny one, if it fits into a muffin!);  some happily tipsy couple broke their red wine bottle, and didn't bother sweeping up the pieces; someone simply gets ill; and someone simply gets annoyed.

I need to stop taking these things so personally. But what I can conclude with is that, during these slightly tiring times, it is amazing to realize how many incredible friends I have - and how I have even in this strange context made a few new friends. Even in the worst times, there is light. (And I know, these are mildly challenging times - nothing even close to catastrophe or suffering - I have that much perspective!). But the light still shines very bright, and I am very, immensely grateful.