It is 11 p.m. and I just started writing. I got home from work at 10:00; I attended back-to-back graduation receptions on our campus. I drove home thinking as I breezed through what is normally the most gridlocked three miles of my trip how I wish the commute was like this every day. This is one of those days that felt like two different days: I had a good morning meeting at work, cranked out a project in the afternoon and the two events in the evening. I am grateful to be home and winding down. The trouble with getting home so late is that I still want to do all my regular things I do when I get home: catch up on Facebook, play with the dog a little bit, and putter around before settling in to write this blog and go to bed. In those situations I end up staying up way too late only to smack the clock radio the standard three times beginning at 5:39 when the radio comes on. Alas…
So I decided to spin the RNG (random number generator) wheel and pick tonight’s blog. I landed on Day 46 from August 14, 2011.
“So how long you think you’re going to keep writing this? Did you make a specific commitment to it?”
I sat in the sun on my friend’s back deck talking about the process of writing this blog. I confessed that some days I have more to say than others,and sometimes I just plain get stuck trying to figure out what to focus on in a given night. I definitely didn’t make a particular decision about how long I would write,and at times I’ve wondered how long I can sustain a daily blog. What I did commit to was writing each day about something I’m grateful for. Some days are harder than others–uncertainty about what’s next clouds my thoughts and creates that nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach. There isn’t a day that I don’t wake up with a sense of panic, the only thing that’s different from one day to the next is the degree of discomfort. But what I am beginning to recognize is that I’m no longer overwhelmed. I still get scared and I still get the blues, but the depth of fear and sadness is significantly less than it has been in the recent past.
I’m grateful for the tools I am discovering and incorporating into my life that are helping me navigate my current situation. And I am grateful for the people in my life who part of this journey. They help sustain me when I need support from outside myself. It’s not just the obvious people–my siblings,my kids,my friends,many of whom I’ve written about in this blog at various times. I am also fortunate to have a concerned and very helpful therapist who helps me make sense of what’s happening with straightforwardness, humor, and compassion.
Sometimes I am amazed to still be writing this blog. 670 days is a long time. I’ve written for 443 days straight after a two week hiatus in February 2011. Some days I feel like I have nothing to say that I haven’t already said. Some days this blog seems to be stuck on the same themes–but what can I say, I really am always grateful for family…Through it all, the daily focus on something positive helps me so much, even on those nights when I can’t articulate it. As I told my friend all those months ago, I have no idea how long I’ll keep writing every day. At some point I am likely to wind it down. But for the foreseeable future I’ll keep writing and sharing the lessons in gratitude that I’m learning each day. And be grateful in the process.
