I didn’t sleep well last night, or perhaps it was just that I woke up around 5 a.m. with my mind racing and struggled to get back to sleep. I also noticed that it was cold in my room, which is relatively unusual. I determined that the switch that adjusts the heat had malfunctioned and was not automatically turning on throughout the night. When I finally woke up sometime around 9 a.m. it was pretty cold. I lay there for a while, not really wanting to come out from under the relative warmth of the covers and began thinking about how I was going to spend my day. This is before I remembered that today is Wednesday and that means volunteering at the Food Pantry. Once that fact dawned on me, my day was set for the most part.
It was a relatively quiet day at the Pantry–in fact it was as quiet this week as it was hectically busy last week. At one point there was a span of about 15 minutes during which no clients came in. The group of us volunteers chatted about a variety of innocuous subjects until more clients trickled in. In spite of the smaller number of folks we served today, the day passed relatively quickly and before too long I was headed home. I arrived to a chilly house, which indicated to me that the thermostat still wasn’t working properly. I finagled with it a little bit and think I’ve got it working for the time being, but it’s only a matter of time before I have to call the manager about getting it fixed. Another something to add to the to-do-list.
Today has been a somewhat choppy day on my emotional sea. No major gales have arisen, but occasional winds and surges have buffeted my little boat–not enough to make it capsize and dump me into the cold waters of sadness and worry, but enough to keep me unsettled and a little seasick. My goal and desire is to be steady and calm, so I am hoping in the next few days to provide myself with some smoother sailing. It’s all in how I view my current circumstances. I could approach them (understandably so) with fear and anxiety, or with hope and optimism. Likely I will approach them from some middle ground where hope and reality collide. Having a gratitude practice at times like these is helpful. It causes me to look back at the end of my day and review all the things I have in my life to be thankful for. Sometimes this can be incredibly difficult if I’ve had a particularly bad day. But on most days I can find and focus on a number of things about which I can express my gratitude.
I am grateful this evening for whatever it is inside of me that keeps me going even when I don’t feel like it. That thing, that drive, has kept me writing about gratitude every day for half a year. I didn’t really know what I was setting out to do; it seemed like a good way to spend a few minutes each day. I have no idea how long I will continue writing a daily blog, but at this moment in time I can scarcely imagine missing it for even a single day. So for now my plan is to keep thinking, writing, and learning about gratitude and what it means to navigate through the various challenges of life with a grateful heart. Tonight I will spend some time in prayer–I have a lot of things to sort out–and hope for better sleep. I am grateful once again for very simple things–a place to come in from out of the cold, the careful tweaking of the finicky thermostat to get the heat to come on, the ability to serve people at the Food Pantry today, and for the wild turkeys who hang out on my block. It might be silly, but I get such pleasure out of seeing my fine feathered neighbors on a regular basis. I am happy for anything that generates a smile, and they do.
So just a couple more days until the end of 2011. I plan to do some writing about what I am letting go of from this year and what I am looking forward to for 2012. Some of that writing will perhaps end up in this blog in some way. I am grateful to all of you who read it. I hope it makes a difference in your life and that you’re practicing gratitude in your own unique way. May we each hold the world and its people with great compassion, love and gratitude and may we share in the joy of others as we all walk this path. So let it be!
© M. T. Chamblee, 2011
