Lessons in Gratitude Day 93

Whew, I’m tired tonight. It is a good tired. Tonight I am grateful for another week, one in which I used the words, “I feel good” a lot. Up until very recently I used to be afraid to use those words; I held some fear that somehow I would suddenly not feel good again, that at any moment those good feelings would evaporate and I would be battling my old foe depression. But I am learning to enjoy feeling good without worrying about how long it will last. That is a relief.

Today another “blue Friday” passed during which I was not blue. I suspect that soon I will cease referring to it in those terms and eventually I will forget that Fridays represented anything other than the end of a week. These days I spend the weekends pretty much by myself–though a friend reminded me that my “four-legged” is here keeping me company. I forget about Honor, our six year old “pup,” and I doubt she is offended by that. I suppose having another living thing with me as I go through the day is helpful, though she is not particularly talkative. I am finding that I can spend time in relative quiet and be alright with it. At various points throughout this weekend I will get out of the house and be around people.

I am grateful for the patience that is working itself out in my life. I am learning to wait. On the surface I cannot see what’s happening, my outer circumstances seem to have changed very little. But on the inside I can feel a growing sense of anticipation that something good is about to happen, a door is even now swinging open for me and some new possibilities will present themselves. I’ve spent the past few months making room for them. I used to be quite frustrated with all the uncertainty, the not knowing what I’m “supposed” to be doing with all this talent, creativity, experience. I have let go of thinking I know what that looks like, that I will get a job working in the same type of setting, similar circumstances to what I’ve done for the past 25-plus years. In fact I am getting a sense that it might not look at all like I expect it to; that what I end up doing next is going to be a significant departure from what I’ve been doing. And I’m okay with that.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” For most of my life I’ve been a kind of go-where-the-path-may-lead kind of person; but I think perhaps the past few months I’ve been trekking where there is no path, sort of making it up as I go along or laying the path while walking on it. It has at times been scary because I haven’t known where it is leading. But I have to believe that God, the Universe, the Great Spirit won’t let me fall. Everything will work out. So I continue to walk, continue to pray, continue to take action doing the things I need to do while I wait for the plan to unfold. I remain grateful for the grace to be able to walk through another day, another week and on this the last day of September, another month of learning and growing.