I could be more grateful.

Challenge must have been accepted, because I am more grateful today than I was yesterday.

I'm a very grateful person. There are many times where I just sit silently in my apartment and think of all the blessings I have. Just having that apartment, a warm place to call home that I share with the my soulmate, is a gift. There is just TOO much to be grateful for to not notice. And I do realize there is much that I don't even notice. I am grateful for that too.

Anyway, my point is that I'm just so grateful for basically everything that it's a challenge to find something new to be grateful for. But it happened today.

I went to class because I managed to stay up long enough to get to it. If I'd gone to sleep, I would've been toast, and I've been toast for the past month. I got to class and felt surprisingly good. Like...comfortable. Like myself, but I've ranted about that before, so you get the picture. Until I realized we were doing another practical and that I had to work as a team with my class (a grand total of 4 other students). I heavily contemplated getting the EFF out of dodge, but I had to suck it up so I could talk to the teacher afterward and beg to get a passing grade.

I actually had nothing to be scared of. It was pretty easy, I could actually talk to people - a foreign experience, and I was able to be physically near people without a flinch (seriously, this stuff is a miracle-worker). I got to collect the evidence too, so that was fun!

So that finally ended and all had gone well. As we were wrapping up the crime scene sketch and report, I was having an internal battle in my brain. I didn't want to embarrass myself by telling my teacher about my problems. I didn't want to use it as an excuse. I'd probably cry. Maybe he'd let me get away with missing 4 of the 5 practicals??? I wussed out and decided to just not do anything. I was too scared.

But the teacher gestured to me as I was leaving the classroom. Dead meat. He waited unitl everyone was gone to tell me that, after all the graded assignments were put in, I'd not have enough points to pass the class. I'd resigned myself to that fate, so I wasn't too upset. He asked what I wanted him to do. I just told him I was sorry and that I should've done more and I'd been trying to fix it by seeing a therapist.

But then something weird happened. He seemed to really understand. I could see it in his eyes. He asked if I was taking my medication (something he completely guessed at). And I said I liked the gabapentin, but I wasn't taking the paxil. He shook his head, still with compassion in his eyes and said: "You need to take your medication. They prescribe it for a reason." He explained that he didn't like giving incomplete grades because the class is mostly practicals. Then he said he would make a deal that, if I turned in my assignments and participated in the final practical, he'd let me have a C.

That's about when the tears came. I told him it was more than I could've asked for. I can't believe how compassionate he was. And I was so embarrasssed. He went on to say he wished I'd been to class more because I "could've learned a lot" and that I "seemed to catch on to things quickly" (which, from him, was like getting a gold medal).

I always thought he was cool, he just seemed...military still. He was in the military CSI and he is just very analytical, practical, and sharp as a tac. He'd smoke while overseeing our practicals. Even close enough for me to get second-hand. I loved it! He just didn't strike me as the type who'd even believe in mental illness. But I guess that's stupid in hindsight, since he's worked so many crime scenes where mentally ill people are perpetrators or victims.

Anyway, this is such an incredible act of mercy. I couldn't be more grateful to him. I asked if I could give him a hug in the end and he said yes. It was awesome.