BE AN ANGEL DAY

The groundwork has started for the new nursing home facility being built across the street from us.  There are three housing entities under one corporate umbrella.  This brings live entertainment to the boyfriend, who enjoys watching construction crews work a project from start to finish.   Depending on how long we live, they might be building our next and final home.....right across the street.

Today's to-do list is lengthy, but I'm known to carry tasks over to the next day.  This is yet another element in the 'could care less' attitude that seems to be gaining in speed.  Am unable to pinpoint a day or month or year this change in self-expectation took its grip on me.  I'm thinking it's a good thing, rather than being in a frantic and fitful panic to arrive before leaving home.  

A wonderful breeze has the branches and leaves dancing.  A perfect August day.  Just can't get a grip on how fast the days go by.  Seems it's always Friday.  When we were working, Friday was always days away and the work weeks were endless.  We'd count the hours until the weekend.  It's kinda like life gets tipped upside down.  

In 1993, Rev. Jayne Howard Feldman designated August 22 as a non-denominational National Be an Angel Day......to encourage people to do small acts of kindness for others. 

A small act of kindness can change another's life and may even restore their faith in humanity.

Small acts of kindness have ripple effects and may be carried forward a million times over.  Their reach knows no bounds.  

Doing an act of kindness releases feel-good hormones.  It feels good to do good.

More than ever, we who are alive in 2024, can see for ourselves the global need for kindness.  Bless me Father, but there was a time when I was a social Sally who was out and about and loved spending time with people.  Then Covid struck.  During the time the world shut down, I experienced a new kind of peace that comes without human interaction.  There is so much negativity and lack of moral character out there, I'm the happiest now when I'm at home with the boyfriend doing the things that foster late-life tranquility.  I avoid today's drama and division that's taken over our lives.  Rather than endure all that, I choose to be kind to myself.  Sometimes we forget that acts of kindness can also be directed at ourselves.  

We all have a secret list of people we could easily live without having met or encountered.  I've learned to keep my distance so as not to upset them or me.  Those feelings go both ways, so it's actually a kindness to them that I stay away.  

The old-fashioned common courtesies have been replaced by acronyms.  Thank you is now expressed as TY.  To my silly way of thinking, TY just doesn't feel warm-fuzzy.  The human connection, the one-on-one, face-to-face, has been reduced to on-screen abbreviations and emojis.  Closing a text with a heart or smiley-face emoji, that's an act of kindness. 

The fun part of kindness is that it's so simple.  We don't have to go to a Walmart parking lot and hand balloons to strangers.  It's that business again of the little things, tiny gestures like a smile.  Another societal change is the growing number of people who do not return a smile.  Man, that bugs me, but then I try to sympathize rather than criticize.  There most likely is a painful reason.  

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.  Maybe if we reach out with  generous hearts we'll add some sugar to our sour world!