I don’t often feel grateful for the situation I’m in. Normally I’m in a dizzying storm of exhaustion twisted up with feeling multiple emotions at the same time while trying to put on a normal, appropriate face around others when it’s all brewing inside me. Sometimes I’ll dare to admit, “I’m just not feeling right”, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of how it feels to be me during this moment in time. It’s usually just all I can muster.
Yet, as I sit with my coffee staring at the fire this morning, I notice something new: gratitude.
A few months ago I was taking a long walk and happened upon one of those adorable little free library boxes where you can take and leave books at your leisure. I cannot pass one of these without being immediately drawn to it. You know, the whole moth to a flame thing. On that particular day there was a book hiding inside called “How to do nothing: Resisting the attention economy” and I snatched it up. I made a promise in my head that I’d return once my book is published. Truthfully I haven’t gotten very far, but the idea of doing nothing continues to resonate with me. What can I discover about myself and the world around me by intentionally doing nothing?
A lot.
This morning I decided I wouldn’t put on the tv or blast music to avoid hearing my own thoughts. I let myself sit with them and that’s when I noticed it. I was surprised because, in the middle of this shit storm, what do I have to be grateful for? Well, there’s actually quite a lot if I tune into myself.
I’m grateful for friends, old and new, offering to take my kids to basketball games and gymnastics class. I’m grateful for bosses, old a new, reaching out to share kind words. I’m grateful for gifts of food deliveries and recently published books and notepads, chocolates and candles and socks, pampas grass and handwritten cards and rose night cream, matching pajamas with a far-away friend, handmade dish cloths, a magnet of my favorite people, a piano I promise to return unscathed, and all of the gifts of people’s time to ask me how I am really doing and to listen without judgement when I tell them I’m not OK.
I don’t know when I’ll be myself again. Honestly, it’s not clear in this moment if I’ll completely return to her ever again. I imagine I’ll carry forward the parts I’ve cultivated for years that I’m most proud of and leave the other bits on the floor that don’t serve me anymore to leave room for new sides of me to emerge.
I’m excited to see what’s in store for me next and grateful for what’s already here.
Tomorrow, or an hour from now, I may feel completely different, so let the record show, I did allow myself a few moments of gratitude.