Grateful Tomorrow

After a wonderful day off, I return to work on Tuesday.  I haven't checked my schedule yet, but I'm sure it will be someplace a couple of hours away.  I don't know if I can do this this winter.  I'm starting to get scared when I drive in the snow.  The brightness confuses my eyesight.  Jobs that pay this well are hard to come by.  I have to do this for now.  I should be grateful I am able to work.

I guess I don't want to work anymore at all.  I want to play.  I want to shop.  I want to travel.  Oh, does that sort of entertainment cost money? Sigh.  So every day I will continue to play the part in my skirt and heels, gulping my Starbucks and driving, driving, driving. OK, I am grateful that I have a job.

My life could be much worse. We aren't impoverished, just on a budget. Our health issues are manageable for now.  I'm darn cute for an old lady. I need to hear it once in awhile, that's all. My car is working, the dog is healthy (even after eating a Popsicle stick). Of course we want, want, want like other people do, but we have, have, have more than many. 

Tomorrow, or some day this week,  I will take my notebook to a quiet little park at lunchtime. I will eat my yogurt and my nectarine and think about all the good things in my life, and learn to appreciate them.  I will write them down so that on those days when I want to complain and run away, I can look at my list and say, "I am grateful for this."  Another day I will go to the cemetery and talk to Mom and Dad, begging them for their wisdom.  It isn't enough right now to depend on my own judgement.  I need to practice being grateful.

Some days it is easy to be grateful. Those we love are close by. We can touch them, talk to them, hold them close  and all is well.  Or if they are far, we can pick up the phone or open the email to find them.  The drink is cool, the sun is warm, the sky cloudless.  These are the days it is easy to believe.

There are other days, even weeks that seem never ending, when the smallest troubles seem like mountains to climb.  We take it out on those we care about most.  We are not grateful for the snippets of time and health and wealth,  We are too busy looking at the big picture of uncertainty. Like me, others are uncertain of their futures.  They wonder if they are loved and wanted, they wonder if their loved ones will always be around, they wonder if the job will be there or if the roof will hold through another winter storm.  I understand, I do.  The names and the games are different;  the playbook is the same.  It is all these things that make us ungrateful.

So I need to take another step forward.  I will take a few minutes every single day to continue the journey I was foolish enough to think had ended.  This step is to learn to be grateful once again for all the good things in my life, no matter how small. 

I am grateful for my family; for you, my friends, for my faith.  I am grateful that I have a park to hide in, a lake to gaze upon, nourishment to share and hugs to give.  I am even grateful for my work, because it sustains me.  By the end of this challenge, I will find much more for which to be grateful.

The journey has begun again.  You are welcome to join me.