Tonight I am watching the cursor blinking in the white space below the formatting ribbon on the blog editing page contemplating what I want to write. Earlier this evening I was out to dinner with two of my sisters and one brother-in-law celebrating my sister’s birthday. I commented that perhaps I would shift my gratitude blog from a daily blog to once per week. My older sister gave me a look that communicated clearly to me that she didn’t think much of that idea. “What do you mean you’re going to start writing once per week, does that mean you’re not grateful every day?” She asked. “How will you keep track of all the stuff you’re grateful for so you’ll remember what to write down at the end of each week?” What she was also implying without actually saying it was that she’d grown accustomed to reading it every day so, again, unstated but implied, I have to keep writing it every day. “Great,” I replied. “Now every time I think about not writing every day or stopping it altogether I’m going to hear your voice in my head saying, ‘You can’t stop writing.'”
The truth is I often say to myself, “You have to keep writing for the faithful handful of folks who read daily.” Sometimes when my mind is tired and I’ve had a tough day, I don’t feel like writing; I don’t have the energy to create an interesting piece about gratitude and what I am grateful for that day. On hard days, I have to work that much harder first to find the blessings in my life for which I’m grateful, then the mental and sometimes physical energy it takes to construct a written piece about it. But that’s exactly when it occurs to me that there are people like a few of my siblings whom I know read every day and who would be disappointed if suddenly my blog failed to appear in my Facebook feed. I write for myself and I write for you, and while I might be willing to disappoint myself, it’s a lot harder to disappoint you readers.
So tonight I am grateful for your readership that motivates me to keep writing even when I am tired. I am also grateful for a few simple blessings. I am grateful as always for family. I thoroughly enjoyed being out for dinner this evening with two of my three sisters. Adding the third sister would have added the cherry on top. Who knows, perhaps sometime soon. I am also grateful for the gift of song, not simply music, but specifically songs. A couple of days this week when I was driving down to work I blasted songs on my car stereo, singing along with them, belting out the tunes. I forget how much I love singing and how therapeutic and healing it is for me to sing really loud, especially when I’m commuting down to work. I’m sure it releases all the endorphins I need to have a great day and then some. On the days when I sang, my attitude was different, lighter. You would think I would remember this and sing every day, but I have not yet created this particular habit. It’s definitely worth working on.
I need to go to sleep now. Because of the birthday festivities, I started this blog much later than usual. I keep finding that I’ve nodded off at the keyboard, so I think I’ll finish up and sign off so that I can go to sleep for real. I am grateful to have readers who serve as one of the motivating factors that will keep me writing for a while. Gratitude is part of my daily internal practice and will continue to be so far into the future. Thank you for sharing this practice with me.
