Month: July 2016

Day 23- Gratitude Project

I’m grateful today for time. The time I get to spend with my daughter, who is growing up faster than I can imagine, the time I spend with my husband, especially on weekends, the time I have to relax and enjoy my life, time in general. 

We are living in the safest age in human existence, yet it’s incredibly unpredictable and sometimes frightening. It’s all just time. Time heals wounds, allows political and geographic landscapes to change, and teaches us innumerable lessons in life. 

We have such limited time in this life. Wasting it worrying, fighting, and dividing seems ill conceived. Our time on this planet as a species could also be fleeting, just a mere blip on the radar of eternity. I’m grateful for the moments I have here, however few they may be. 

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Day 22- Gratitude Project 

Today I’m grateful for vegan cookbooks. I’m thankful that other people have painstakingly discovered recipes that they care to share with the world, so that we may feed ourselves and our families. 

Because of these recipes being readily available, I have been able to learn countless ways to create meals for my family. I’m thankful to these pioneers for teaching me how to make dinners, lunches, and more on a regular basis. Tonight we had veggie burgers, made from scratch, in about 10 minutes. 

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Day 21- Gratitude Project

Today, I’m grateful for my health. I have barely been ill in a number of years, and for that, I’m extremely thankful. If I were to get sick, it would be difficult for my family to lose money from missed work, and should I get very sick, it would be devastating. However, I eat well, moderately exercise, and don’t have many vices… (Aside from coffee and the occasional alcohol, there aren’t any). I normally avoid colds and the flu, but typically get a little something nasty in the winter time, most of the time due to allergies.

I am glad that I have my health and the wherewithal to maintain it to the best of my ability. It’s sometimes the only thing we can be thankful for during those days in which things don’t seem to be going right or where there are challenges. Today is not particularly challenging, I just have had a difficult week chasing down paperwork and dealing with difficult situations. These have made me recognize that if I weren’t healthy, these things would be significantly worse to cope with. I am so thankful that not just I am healthy, but also that my husband and baby are too. We are especially fortunate, since so many others cannot say the same.

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Day 20- Gratitude Project (halfway there!)

Gratitude is a funny thing. Either you can embrace it in its pure form, or you can resist it. I’ve been battling gratitude in certain situations recently, but I’ve decided that I need to embrace it more fully. So, I guess in a way, I’m grateful for the lessons that gratitude has shown me. For instance, I’ve been so overcome with gratitude and truly humbled since I started writing my thankfulness yet, I’ve been partially blind to other areas that I could embrace in my gratitude.

This culminates in the fact that I’m grateful for the women who have come before me. Their struggles have paved the way for many of the things that I take for granted. I am able to wear pants, for example. I can go in public without an escort, and I can vote, should I choose to. However, at the same time, I’m an idealist. I want things to be right; I want the world around me to be a just place, and I seem to be more and more disappointed at this lack of righteousness and justice. That doesn’t take away my gratitude, but I am also not choosing to shine a light on the parts of things that aren’t perfect, that I am grateful for. Please note that this will be my only “political” post during my gratitude project.

In the spirit of true gratitude, I am eternally grateful (while also incredibly sad) for Bernie Sanders and his unwavering commitment to public service. He has not faltered in his convictions or changed his ideals for anyone or any amount of money. He has not caved to the immense pressure in decades. It has likely strengthened his resolve. I would literally walk through fire if it ensured his presidency. I truly believe that he is the only politician worth my vote that has come along in my lifetime. I am truly grateful for his lifetime of challenging the status quo and his ability to unite people. I’m truly saddened and have been experiencing a period of mourning that he is not the Democratic Nominee.

However, I am also grateful for the fact that Hilary (although, I’m not a huge fan of her) has achieved something no other woman has in our country. I am grateful for her dedication to not wavering or allowing politics to remain “a man’s game”. She may not be the person I want, she has overcome many obstacles and has worked her way to this perch. That has not gone unnoticed by me, even though I have been upset about the results. She knows how to play the game and has achieved a lot. She cannot be bashed for that, not that I’m bashing anyone.

I’m grateful that we are able to have civil discourse, and that we have relatively free elections. There are things that could be better, and I wish they were, but I’m grateful that I do not live in another country in which I do not have these same freedoms. American is FAR from perfect for an idealist like me, but I am grateful that I live her compared to many other places.

I’m not sure what I will do in November, and I’m likely to take more time to decide. But I’m grateful for Bernie, and for what Hilary has achieved. Perhaps this is a start to more women being in politics and changing the face of American governance. We certainly cannot keep going this same path.

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Day 19- Gratitude Project

Today, I’m thankful for writing. I love writing and have several projects going on that involve writing. When I was in college, I hated much of the writing and after many years of school, I all but lost my love for it. I really wanted nothing to do with writing and I felt lost for a very long time. I feel lost when I stray from my love of writing. I love thinking and expressing using the written word. I even love writing by hand, even though we do so little of it these days.

Writing also makes me feel better. Even if I’m not writing about what has got me down, the simple act of expression oneself soothes me. I don’t do nearly as much of it as I’d like, but I’m working on that. I someday aspire to do it for a living, though, I feel like it could dampen my gratitude for writing if I’m doing it for money. But I feel like I can still love it, if I’m doing the writing I want to do. Writing term papers sucks the love right out of me. But writing about observations, thoughts, feelings, joys, sorrows… THAT inspires me.

So I’m not just thankful for the act of writing, but the feelings I get from it, and after it. I am also grateful for the inspiration that sparks my desire to write. I’m thankful for the words in my head, aching to come out, like a composer orchestrating a symphony. I love words and their meanings. I used to read the dictionary as a kid. True story. And I strove to learn new words, and to use them whenever possible.

I will not likely author the next great novel, but someday I would like to write a memoir, about a previous life I once had. But in the meantime, I’ll write my memoir as it goes. Even though it is a far cry from what it was even just a few years ago, I have a blessed life and a desire to share not only my life experiences, but the words scrambling in my head about it.

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