~thankful thursday~ it’s working

11/16/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 16

“time is but the stream i go a-fishing in. i drink at it; but while i drink i see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” ~henry david thoreau

not that long ago, i was reading buoy to a three-year old who was obsessed with boats; he built himself a kayak this summer, and in just over a year he plans on riding a gondola down the watery streets of venice. he went through a phase of night waking when he was 2, and we would sometimes bake muffins at 2am; now he is signed up to learn how to bake italian cookies, in rome. i am grateful for the opportunities my boy has laid out before him. i got myself a passport when i was 19, and some of the most important lessons i’ve learned were from traveling. i have not been to europe yet myself, but plan to get there one day. in the meantime, i’m grateful my kid will need a passport before he is 19.

11/17/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 17

it should be mentioned as frequently as nachos, if not more, that i am grateful for my bathtub.

11/18/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 18

i’m grateful for the man who sleeps by my side. i believed i was crushing the bones of his hand last night to get myself through the migraine pain until the ibuprofin started to take effect. when i thanked him this morning he assured me i hadn’t been squeezing his hand very hard. i’m also quite grateful for sunday, my one day a week to sleep in, and for waking up without pain to a sunny morning of hummingbirds, pumpkin pancakes, and coffee.

11/19/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 19

i am thankful to be back in a little groove with writing. words have such power to divide or unite, to destroy or to heal. i will not claim my own words have the power to do any of those for anyone else, but i do know that writing is healing for me. it takes some nerve to put original thoughts into a post, at least it does for me. so often, i hear voices advising against it… in my head, of course. who am i to post about migraine pain when others are in so much worse pain? who am i to post about my son when others have lost children or been unable to have them? or my parents, when friends have lost theirs? who am i to post about my loving husband when so many are lonely tonight? who am i to post about the comforts of home when so many homes have burned? it’s enough to shut a person right up, and friends, that is the story with me for 11 months out of the year on this here social media platform. so i pray that my november spree of words have not offended anyone out of lack of consideration or ignorance of your experience, or in my excitement or earnestness about mine. i am grateful for all the kindness sent my way through sweet comments. and i am grateful that what i set out to do with the written word, my selfish goal of healing my own soul, is working.

11/20/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 20

today i am grateful for my mom and dad. 20 is their day, and in a month they will celebrate 43 years of marriage. some marriages are long, and some marriages are great, but it seems to me that only a lucky few marriages get to be both long and great. theirs is one of those.

11/21/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 21

i am feeling grateful for the words chosen by several friends and family members concerning my day 19 post. it felt really nice to know that other people understand the struggle, and that they would not want me to silence my voice.

11/22/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 22

when i was transitioning my son this afternoon to his dad’s for thanksgiving (as a two-household kid, he has even years with dad, odd years with mama), a rainbow appeared in the sky. i recalled one of last year’s gratitude posts about transitions, and the magic around the edges of things, including the edges where sunlight and rain meet. today’s rainbow was so vibrant (and its double shimmered in and out of view) that i took a different route home and pulled over a few times to take a cell phone photo. it outlasted the average rainbow, accompanying me all the way home to where my husband of exactly one year and four months (today is our dorkaversary) was standing in the driveway with my real camera, having just witnessed the same rainbow, and having been attempting to capture it for me. since i have been dating him for 6 years and 11 months, i think it’s okay if i repeat a gratitude, on this day of gratitude, during a month of gratitude feedback loops creating waves of even more gratitude simply because i’m looking for it consciously. so today i am grateful for rich, my rainbow love.

happy thanksgiving!!!