Aurora 2022-Final

Rayven Crook

Rayven Crook

Running Water

2021 Prison Writing Contest – Woman’s Press Club of Indiana Rockville Correctional Facility

Truth be told you’re probably right but the difference between the two trains of thought is that one will leave you absolutely joyous with the tiniest thing in life and one will leave you feeling haughty and self-righteous, indifferent to life only until it makes you angry. Don’t wait until you don’t have the small things to become reminiscent of better days. That is no more than a cycle of misery. That takes away from your happiness! It’s a very unsatisfying way to live your life. If you are gracious, you will find genuine happiness in every little thing in your life, and when you don’t have it anymore you’ll be happy to have had it at all. What a way to be alive, being grateful for the air you breathe and the heart that beats inside you. You can’t help but feel anything other than joy. It’s up to you, every day, whether you want to count your blessings. But from personal experience, watching my own life blossom before my eyes under the influence of immense gratitude, I recommend you learn to say thank you. Especially for your running water.

Imagine your life without running water. Imagine a bucket that you squat over to relieve yourself, and then imagine having to periodically take your bucket outside to dump it. Imagine your home smelling of urine and excrement even though you painstakingly dump your bucket every few hours to prevent that horrid smell. Home sweet home, right? Imagine yourself having to cook with bottles of water. How would you wash your clothes with your fancy laundry pods? How would you wash-rinse-repeat with your name brand shampoo and conditioner without that glorious shower pressure quickly rinsing out the residue? I mean really think about it. Lose yourself in the nightmare your life would become if you didn’t have that wondrous thing called running water. Finally, come back to your plush reality and remember you’re too blessed to have any of those things. What can you feel now, for your faucets and your shower heads, other than pure gratitude? I know every one of us is going through something right now. I know at times life is difficult and things may not always go the way we’d like them to. But for the sake of your own heart, don’t let yourself get so lost in all the things you don’t have that you forget all the magical things you do have. People don’t realize the power of gratitude. Honestly, they are more than likely so tired of the word being shoved down their throats they rebelliously avoid it at all costs. That’s understandable because I, too, rolled my eyes at people telling me to count my blessings every time I complained. It wasn’t until, in my one quiet reverie—when I at last allowed myself to count those blessings—that I realized what I had been stubbornly missing out on all my miserable life. It’s easy to be grateful for an unexpected check. It’s easy to say thank you to a friend who buys us an expensive gift. But what about the beautiful sky above you? Can you lose yourself in the utter magnificence of it? Or do you even take the time to do little more than glance? What about the way your friend remembered you don’t like mayo on your cheeseburger? Or when the garbage man doesn’t leave your trash can knocked over when he’s rushing through your neighborhood? What about the overworked people who bottle the soda you love to guzzle down after that cheeseburger your friend brought? Do you truly feel gratitude for those things? Or do you say, “Well, that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

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