I spent much of the year in gratitude for family and friends. I lived all of 2013 in Maryland, having moved here in October of 2012. During this past year I have so deeply appreciated once again living close to family. Prior to my seven years in California, I’d lived in Michigan, a little over two hours away from my brothers and Dad in Indiana. But when I moved to the greater Washington DC metropolitan area last fall, I moved within 20 minutes of each of my three sisters. For the first time in over 30 years I lived in the same vicinity as my sisters (40 years for my two older sisters). I have spent more time hanging out with one or another of them in 2013 than I have in the last few decades, and I am loving it. Spending time with my sisters and their partners and families helped me to feel a little less alone in 2013. When I moved across the country from the West Coast to the East, I “left behind” my two “children”–my son in California and my daughter in Washington State. So for the past 15 months it’s been me and my canine sidekick Honor, sharing space in my little house. It has been wonderful reengaging with them all.
Extended family played a role in my life this past year: my love and interest in our family history was reignited in 2013 and my sister Sandy (my “Road Trip Twin”) and I traveled to the Chamblee family reunion in Gainesville, Georgia this past summer. We met and kindled new relationships with cousins descended from my grandfather’s aunties. I went to the reunion filled with energy and questions about our family history on both my parents’ sides of the family, noting all the questions I needed to pose to the few remaining elders in our family. Sadly, even as we were driving back from the reunion we received word that my Aunt Jeanne, one of my mother’s sisters and the only one who could answer some of my questions, had passed away. My heart grieved her loss, not only as a beloved aunt, but as one who could have answered some very basic but important questions about my grandmother, for whom I was named. I have been intrigued by my ancestry ever since I was a young child pestering my grandfather for stories about who our people were and where they came from. I imagine I’ll spend a chunk of time in 2014 continuing to explore the mysteries and unanswered questions about who we are and where we’re from.
I can’t recount all the lessons in gratitude I’ve learned over this past year, let alone in the 900 days since I began writing this blog. I’ve been grateful for many, many simple blessings–the basic necessities that we too often take for granted–as well as more profound blessings, like finding meaningful, full-time work after a long, difficult job search. It has been a remarkable journey since June 2011. I’ve taken many wild rides on Mephistopheles the Mechanical Bull–my metaphorical explanation for the emotional, mental, and spiritual ups and downs, sides-to-sides, highs and low that I experienced during the “series of unfortunate events” that befell me in 2011. It was through those times that I discovered what I was made of, demonstrating perseverance and resilience that I hadn’t realized I possessed and moving my life in an overall more hopeful direction.
And so at the end of 2013 the blog that is “Lessons in Gratitude” will formally come to an end with this the 901st day. I’ve tried to wrap my mind around the idea that this day was coming and that I would be writing this final blog. What am I going to do when I’ve written the final blog? I’ve asked myself a number of times over the past few weeks. What am I going to do with all that free time I’ll have in the evenings? Will I lose the discipline I’ve built up by having a daily gratitude practice? I haven’t panicked about any of it–not much anyway–just allowed my spirit and subconscious mind to work on the matter while on the surface I kept writing.
As periodically happens, much to my grateful delight, an idea presented itself to me. The idea is a bit rough still, and so I’m not quite ready to make any kind of announcement except to say that my intention is to keep writing several times per week if not every day. The themes will be broader than gratitude, though gratitude will remain an integral part of the repertoire. I also hope to write on themes such as compassion, forgiveness, and various concepts that I’ve explored regularly in this blog. Lessons in Gratitude will continue to be available for the foreseeable future, but the new blog–which has yet to be named–will provide a new platform for sharing reflections on a variety of areas. I begin the new endeavor in the same spirit and energy as I did Lessons: I have no idea where this might go, what I might do with this, and how long I’ll be at it, but I feel pulled to try. I’ll be counting on the support of faithful readers, as well as the occasional newbies to embrace the new blog, which could begin as soon as tomorrow (January 1 is a really good day to start something) or a little later in January, depending on my energy level. We’ll see where it ends up.
I want to close tonight with a prayer that embodies some of what I hope to achieve with my life, not specifically in 2014, but well beyond that. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May we all experience true peace and happiness in 2014. So be it!
The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
© M. T. Chamblee, 2013
