Caffeinated Gum Drops

Welcome back. It's Sunday Sunday SUNDAY! And on this Sunday of Sundays, I am hardcore craving some coffee (as obscurely referenced in today's post title). Caffeine is a dangerous thing...especially in looking back at the large, black coffee I shamefully bought at 10:45 last night.

No regrets. Ever.

Well, maybe a few as I was staring at my ceiling at 2:30 this morning, several dozen thoughts running through my mind and threatening to escape via my eyelids. I considered writing a blog post last night, but I didn't think my roommate would appreciate me fumbling with my laptop and all of its wonderful cords as she was trying to sleep.

But I did get to thinking...quite a bit...about all of the people in my life, and everything they have done to help shape me into who I am now. My family is coming in town today, so that's probably where my mind was at the time, but regardless...I couldn't stop thinking about it.

If I am a puzzle, then these people are helping find pieces that fit. It's unclear sometimes...okay, a lot of the time...why I am here and what purpose I'm going to serve. I can get so caught up in the day-to-day struggles of getting this and that done (as you can probably tell), and I am a worrier. I worry about what's going to happen tomorrow, if I will get my work turned in, if I'll have time to go to the gym, if I'll be able to see so and so...

But there's always something that makes my day, even little things. When there's spinach at the salad bar in the cafeteria. When I solve a physics problem I've been working on forever. When my Calculus professor darts from one end of the board to the next when he gets really excited about a problem. When the sun pokes out and hits the leaves at just the right angle.

But mainly, it's people.
It's people that mean the world to me, that are there when it all seems to come crashing down. People that I try to be there for, too, even when I'm not very good at it. People that send me a random text at 9:30 at night just to ask how my day has been, even when they are hundreds of miles away. People that you run into at the parking lot and go grab coffee way past reasonable hours. People that hear something totally random, like "nectarine", and immediately text you just to laugh. People that call you at midnight with long, complicated stories just wanting someone to listen. People sending you fears and failures that trust you enough to know you are listening. People who read my blog even when it is lame, or cheesy, or total bologna.

People are slowly putting puzzle pieces in place. And one day, far in the future, when I look back at the puzzle that's been made, I will know just how many people really made a difference in me. I'll see how it was all worth it. And I want it to be these, the little moments, that I remember when I look back on my life. These little moments and these very big people. Because I love them all so much.

So this Sunday, my caffeinated gum drops, I want to think about the importance of all those little things, that, in retrospect, really aren't that little. Because when you string together a bunch of little things, you get one Big thing. And, in the words of someone much wiser than me, well, that's what you call life.

Have some wonderful little moments today, my friends.