I love the holidays for one primary reason: more than any other time of year it is one when families seem to want to come together. Tonight I enjoyed spending time with my oldest sister and her husband, two of her three daughters, her grandson, my brother’s daughter who lives in DC, and my daughter. There was a lot of laughter, loud talking about silly things (like scary movies), good food and fun. I was out much later than I usually am on a weeknight and as a result am writing this blog much later than usual. So potentially this will be yet another night when I fall asleep with my laptop on my lap midway through the writing. I have been so tired the last few weeks that falling asleep mid-sentence has been a fairly standard activity.
Late this afternoon I learned that my only remaining meeting of the day for tomorrow was canceled, which means I can work from home and essentially start my day a couple of hours later than I do during the week. I am totally grateful for that. I am grateful to be working. I endured a stretch of time being unemployed, underemployed, and partially employed. I didn’t feel like I was contributing the full range of skills and talents I have to making the world a better place and from a purely practical perspective I was struggling to making ends meet. As challenging as that period of time was, it was during that same time that I began volunteering at the local food pantry, that I began writing this blog, and that the freelance contract work that I was doing was actually helping to make the world a better place, though I didn’t appreciate that at the time. Once I became fully employed again, my time constraints have meant that I have little time to volunteer and my creative energy for blogging has declined a bit. Nevertheless I am grateful to be working and once again contributing my talents and gifts in meaningful work that assists and serves others.
Gratitude has been, to paraphrase Maya Angelou, “the pillow upon which I’ve knelt to say my nightly prayer.” Feeling deep gratitude and expressing it in multiple ways has been part of my genetic code for as long as I can remember. The other evening I wrote about happiness being hardwired into our genes, and that may be true; but gratitude, the sense of appreciation and thankfulness, is wired in there as well. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So yes, I am grateful to be working, and not simply working, but working at a decent job and doing relatively well all things considered. Because I work in higher education, it also means that when school is out, I am off on paid vacation. Different from working at a bank or other type of corporation or agency, working at a university allows me great flexibility, like having two weeks off and getting paid for it. I am deeply grateful for this time and plan to rest, do a little reading, and do some work. And as I wind down the writing of this blog (less than two weeks now), I’m planning to spend time pondering my “what’s next” specifically in terms of how I will spend the time that I used to spend blogging. Though I have a few ideas I haven’t landed on anything specific yet. One thing I do know is that whether I blog about it or not, gratitude is part of my every day, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. And that is a good thing.
