Things to Be Thankful For

Last night, I was sitting in my room contemplating whether or not to do homework (it's all part of the process, you know), and courtesy of facebook updates, found out about the earthquake that had hit Japan, not even an hour after it happened. Along with that news came the news that we were under tsunami advisory with it expected to hit around three in the morning. You might recall last year's Tsunami Tsaturday. I did a little news-searching and received a plethora of texts from friends and eventually decided to pack up and head for the hills, along with everyone else in the house. I contacted family (and won a prize for favorite child in doing so. FINALLY.) and spent the next five hours sleeping in the backseat of the car, trekking up and down the hill a couple of times, demonstrating yoga positions for my roommate, texting, and hoping and praying that nothing would happen. Eventually, around five am, we headed back home and jumped (that might be an exaggeration, we were too tired to jump, but I did have to climb through a window) happily into bed.

This time around, I have no feelings of "Well, that was a waste!" like I did last year. I am just glad to be home safe and am thinking of all those who aren't. One of my good friends lives in Tokyo and can't get back to her family because the transportation isn't working. Other friends have lived in Sendai and are waiting to hear back about people they knew.

There are so many things to be thankful for with this situation- that the tsunami didn't come, that we have the technology to tell us about these things, that communication enables us almost instant contact with the world, that there are so many people who care about me and want to check in and make sure everything is okay.

Also, that it calmed down enough that I could still get some beach time in this afternoon. ;) It's hard to not be selfish in a situation like this and think about all the things that could have happened but didn't. I hope I'll appreciate all of those, but still keep in mind everything that did happen in Japan and elsewhere. The clean-up isn't going to be fun, and I know people's lives will be different for a very long time.