Celebrate!

This evening, I went to dinner with some good friends. I arrived at the restaurant after they did and when I asked at the host stand if they were there, one of their questions was, “Are you celebrating something tonight?”

As I sat through dinner with these friends and as I sit here now, that question resonated through my thoughts. “Are you celebrating something tonight?”

When it comes down to it, we are celebrating something all the time. Tonight, we celebrated good friends who don’t see each other enough, but had a lot to reveal and discuss. We celebrated a newfound honesty and trust that has always existed, but it became verbal tonight. We also celebrated Bella’s fantastic Bruschetta and a couple of glasses of good wine.

As I was driving back from West Virginia yesterday, I felt lots of emotions. Facing the pending death of my father tends to do that to me. I spent most of Saturday with my best friends from college celebrating life-long friendships and college football. Later that evening, I spent dinner time with Dad, just being there helping him eat. While he may not remember who I am on the surface, I know that deep down, he still knows me. I celebrate that. Then my mother and I had our own dinner with one of our best family friends and shared lots of laughs, stories, and good times. More celebration.

During our staff meeting at the Symphony this morning, we celebrated a successful end of the fiscal year, welcoming a colleague back from maternity leave, and a wonderful start to the new season. We celebrated a cancelled meeting that gave us all a few more minutes at our desks. Even when we have tough conversations and face difficult challenges, there is always a reason to be thankful.

We celebrate the Colts winning a Superbowl, even just a regular season game. We celebrate the Pacers not starting another fight and not recruiting another bunch of thugs. We celebrate the Indians for what is one of the best summer outings in all of Indiana, an all-American baseball game. I celebrate the fact that the BCS didn’t drop the Mountaineers another spot in the poll, even though we decided not to run up the score on an unfortunate opponent.

Birthdays, weddings, commitment ceremonies, anniversaries, births—all causes for celebration. And all things that we seemingly take for granted. Yet, we gather as families, as friends, as colleagues, as one to share in a few moments of pleasure.

“Are you celebrating something tonight?”

Each day gives us something new to celebrate, even if it just getting up to face another day. Heck, it could even be celebrating that delicious pumpkin-spice latte from Starbucks, which is the inevitable sign that holiday cups are just around the corner. That is enough to put a smile on my face!

I guess what I wanted to say to the gal at the host stand is, “Yes, we are celebrating something tonight. Would you like to celebrate with us?”

Be well, friends. And let’s celebrate something, anything, anytime, but let’s make it soon!