It was a day. Nothing special:
same morning routine: wake up in the dorm, put on my favorite dress that my mother had crafted for me, sip some water and slip on my laceless shoes (that way I didn’t have to bend over and risk worsening my scoliosis). I made a coffee, using a
French Roast Keurig pod, challenging my taste buds
as I still could not savor any food after having COVID this past week. Teeth brushed already of course, hoping and praying that the coffee didn’t sit on them all day when I flashed my smile around campus.
And with that- I was out.
Out the door now and seeing the crowd of people that anxiously awaited the shuttle up to class, I decided to take the hike. The scenery, although the same as the day before, wore a subtle glow. And it appeared that I did too.
As I got to the top of the hill, I realized that my American Writers class would begin in three minutes, and it was on the complete opposite side from where I stood. So,
looking down at my slip-ons and
adjusting my shoulders
to stabilize my backpack, I carried myself across like my dad had done after seeing a black bear yards away last summer.
The rings on my fingers clink to my coffee cup with each step that I take, creating a nice little mix of greens, topped with some red and orange, with a few slices of some purple to top it off.
My intense power stride towards class is interrupted by my friend Brandon, who yanks me out of my tunnel vision to say “have a good day!” My auto-pilotly reply “thanks” y coughs out of my mouth. My foot forcefully meets an uneven portion of the sidewalk which, as you may have guessed, sends my coffee flying onto my mother’s gift of a white dress.
Can you believe it?
Only a week after labor day and the French Roast is already getting me in trouble for being in white.
At this moment, the course of the rest of my day was determined. Was I going to let this ruin it, or was I going to have a good day just like my friend had said to me seconds earlier? I was late, my dress was ruined, and sweating from my hike all before 8:30 in the morning… but the sun was shining (something I didn’t have at my last school when the Boston winter came out), smiles wore the faces of so many familiar faces on caf-lane, and I wasn’t sick any more.
After quickly weighing this scribbly pros and cons list in my head, I decided to laugh and treat it as a little
God wink treasure instead.
If my friend hadn’t reminded me to have a good day, I probably wouldn’t have spilled my coffee. Yet, something else would’ve probably gone wrong in the next hour or so that put me in this same position of choosing how I react to a situation, but who would have been there to remind me to have a good day?
Would anyone else have?
It was him, Brandon, who encouraged me to have a
positive mindset
throughout my day.
Depending on how you look at them, memories can be little treasures — treasures that you wake up and say, am I going to search for some gold today, or treat everything negative that happens as dirt?
I’m deciding to put on my gold helmet, and lock it in place so that I am always treasure hunting for these little moments, where the road bends and turns and
my perspective changes.
By: Olivia Cox
Grace Gaines