Lessons in Gratitude

“Now I lay me down to sleep…” Yesterday I experienced a long, slow exhale. Some information I had been waiting for finally came in. I was up late last night pondering possibilities, thinking through plans and scenarios, plotting out strategies. This morning, I was awakened by the alarm for the first time in many days–usually I wake up anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes before the alarm, sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m., regardless of how late I went to sleep the night before. So to sleep until the alarm rings is a pretty big deal. I wasn’t jolted awake by the high intensity, adrenalized energy that often brings me abruptly out of sleep into mental activity minutes before my body actually grasps hold of being awake. I look forward to more nights of actual sleep and sigh in anticipation of days coming soon when I might actually awake refreshed and relaxed.

I so appreciate those times when I sleep deeply and well and awaken with a gentle sigh, unhurried and calm. I have spent many, many nights over the past 18 months when restful sleep was rare. In spite of expending significant effort each night focusing on the many blessings in my life, practicing meditation and relaxation, I still often have awakened anxious and fretful, having to calm my racing heart and quiet my overactive mind. I look at that practice like I would at weightlifting. Each time I calm myself is like lifting dumbbells, I get stronger each time I lift them until the exercise is less arduous and my muscles tone and firm. My self calming muscles have grown quite taut from all the practice–my biceps and abs should look so good!

Now I lay me down to sleep. How will I choose to spend the last few moments of wakefulness before I drop off into the silence of sleep? I’ve gotten much more intentional about giving my mind something positive to chew on. This is not always easy, particularly depending on how the day has gone, how much I look around me and see the work I have to get done, on what awaits me in the coming day or week. Still, I am working on this. On my bedside table I keep a number of items I read or look at regularly before I go to sleep and when I wake up. These include the Night Prayer, which I have shared periodically in this blog, and several phrases I repeat to myself during lovingkindness or other traditional meditations. I’ve even written a morning prayer that I periodically recite upon my waking.

I am grateful for the abilities I’ve developed in self-calming and soothing myself to sleep. I am looking forward to cultivating a life during my waking hours that mean I don’t have to work quite so hard to rest well. I’ve been working at it all along, it’s simply time to kick it up a notch. For tonight, I’m simply grateful for having slept more fully this morning. One day, one night at a time.

They say “good things come to those who wait.” Perhaps this is true. But I don’t think waiting is intended to be a passive process of sitting around “wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’.” I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year and a half waiting for one thing or another, but not just waiting. It’s kind of like going to the mailbox everyday waiting for a letter (I know that a letter or card coming in the mail is an antiquated concept in our technology-driven world) from a friend that you didn’t write to in the first place. It’s like hoping someone is going to call you back when you haven’t called them in the first place. Waiting in absence of any kind of action is an exercise in frustration and futility. I am grateful tonight for the seeds of promise that get planted in the soil of possibility, watered by patience tended  with perseverance. How can it not bear fruit?

I have been waiting for a number of things to happen and have watched recently as one by one they’ve begun to click into place. I am not yet in a position to elaborate on all of them, and some of them are for others to tell as part of their life story. But through all these months of waiting, I’ve spent very little time sitting still. I’ve recently been engaged in a fairly excruciating period of waiting that will shortly come to an end. But even in the midst of waiting for answers that have implications for my “what’s next” I haven’t stood still. I’ve worked on various plans, thought through a variety of contingencies, and taken a number of actions to keep things moving along while I wait. Oh yes, and I’ve been grateful. After all the planning and the taking actions and before I settle in to wait, I look around at all the good things in my life and I express my gratitude. It’s like the fertilizer that I add to those seeds I planted. Gratitude is like the seasoning that you put in your favorite dish–once you’ve added in all the ingredients and are waiting for it to finish cooking or marinating or allowing all the flavors to dance together, a pinch or a dash of gratitude makes it that much richer.

I have learned to wait. Sometimes with knots in my stomach, fire in my heart, tears in my eyes, lump in my throat, but I have learned to wait. The songwriter wrote,”Wait patiently for God and be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for God.” I have learned to wait, and I have learned how to wait. It has not been easy, but what I have gained in the midst of the waiting has been worth the cost. I am grateful for the process as muchas for the end product. I don’t have all of my “what’s next” sorted out yet, but it’s getting close and it’s all good.

One other thing I want to mention about waiting before I close (much later tonight than usual)…I have not waited alone. Others have been watching and waiting with me, encouraging me, praying for me, helping me in more ways than I can count. Waiting can be extraordinarily difficult; but it is made so much less so when you have companions keeping the vigil with you. I am soooooo grateful for those of you who have been with me on this journey. You truly have been the arms that have held me up and kept me standing strong as I’ve waited for the difficulties to ease and the storms to pass. I no doubt have more waiting ahead of me over the course of my lifetime, but y’all…I’ve learned how to wait.

I’ve stopping to take a break in the midst of my working to blog. It has been a long day and while I didn’t take breaks to do much of anything other than eat, I still feel like I barely scratched the surface of what I needed to get done. So after I take my little time out to write, I’m going to try to spend some more time packing yet more boxes. Though as I look a the clock as it approaches 10 p.m., I wonder how realistic it is of me to think that I’ll actually get back up from sitting here to do anything else tonight. Still, I’m stubborn and am determined to cross something off the to do list I made this morning. Where had the time gone?

I guess I’m prone to overestimating the amount of time it takes to do something of this magnitude. But honestly, I’ve been working at this process for quite a while and I would have hoped to make better progress. Not only did I spend time getting myself ready to move, I also spent some time this evening helping my son moving things from the condo he and I shared to his new place. He too got a lot done and yet his room is still a mess. How is that possible even? The more you pack up, the more there is to pack up? It doesn’t make sense and yet everything seems to be multiplying.

One good side effect to working all day is that I’ve managed to keep busy enough that I didn’t have to spend any time chasing the blues away. I was simply too busy to worry about it or let it happen. Sitting here now in the relative quiet of the night, a little blueness could creep its way in here. But no. I don’t have time for it. Though the longer I sit here, the tireder I get. Perhaps just one more box before bedtime. We shall see.

I am grateful for what I did accomplish today. Tonight I’ll work a little longer before stopping to take my rest. I’ll get back at it tomorrow morning and see how it goes. My goal will be to start early tomorrow, get a whole lot done, and then get ready for the start of a new week. That sounds like a good, if perhaps mildly unrealistic plan, given my slow progress to date. Nevertheless, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I will be grateful when I have the lion’s share of this work done. When you’re preparing to move, sooner or later, one way or another it does all get done. I still have boxes from my last move that are marked, “Assorted stuff to be sorted.” Those are the boxes get filled near the end when you’ve run out of time to sort things and end up tossing them haphazardly into boxes.

While I hope not to create too many more “TBS” boxes, I believe at least a few are inevitable. Opening them up at some point in the future could be a bit like opening a time capsule–artifacts from an earlier time spill from them, things you hadn’t remembered you owned. And while the temptation might be to toss them into the trash dumpster or donate the contents sight unseen to charity, there is always the slight possibility that something important is in the box and you dare not discard it. This has happened to me often enough that I will have to go through these catchall boxes one by one. I shudder to think of it. For now I will focus on putting things in to boxes, not worrying about what I’ll face when I have to take them back out. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara observed, is another day. I’ll continue to focus on each day as it comes, each hour as it passes and be grateful as best I can for the unfolding.

The end of another week has come, and I am grateful to be able to mark it by saying, “It is well with me.” I have been riding the mechanical bull this week, big time. But through all the bucking and reeling, being flung this way and that, I’ve hung on stubbornly, not being thrown off by all the unpredictable twists and turns that are part of my life these days. Why is it that at the end of a week like this I want to play the theme music from the Rocky films? “Gonna fly now…Flying high now…..” Okay, stop it!

I am grateful to be relatively relaxed and smiling at the end of another wild and wooly week. I’ve had moments of panic and others of calm. I’ve laughed, cried, cursed, smiled, and experienced many variants of the emotional states that produce these reactions. If there’s one thing that life has not been it’s dull. Very few dull, uneventful moments this week. Going into the weekend I have my work cut out for me. I have to somehow get the majority of my house packed up and ready to move. The fact that I still don’t know where I’m moving to notwithstanding, I still need to be ready to go almost at a moment’s notice. While this makes life hectic and complicated, again, I have no worries about the whole dull thing.

One thing I continue to be grateful for is a sense of humor. I mean I don’t always feel like things are funny, and sometimes life is downright serious. But I must admit that I get weary of feeling anxious or depressed or sad or overwhelmed. What a drag! So I am quite relieved and gratified when I find things that I can actually laugh at. Sometimes while I’m listening to the audiobook series I’ve been enjoying lately, some of the events and dialogue and predicaments the characters get into tickle my funny bone, and while I might not laugh uproariously (which is a good thing as I usually listen to it during my 45-minute commute to and from work) I do get a good chuckle out of it. I’ll take a good chuckle anytime. In the midst of my oh-so-serious life circumstances, I am really coming to value the power of a good, solid laugh. I’m looking forward to laughing more often. Perhaps I’ll schedule some laughing time for myself this weekend–while I’m packing.

I am not sure how this weekend and the coming week is going to unfold. I’m guessing it will be a bit like this week. I am waiting for some information that will firmly click into place what my next weeks are going to look like. One way or another I’m going somewhere, the destination is yet to be determined. There’s a line from the book of Genesis that I have used in conversation with people I know who were going through transitional issues. It was the perfect metaphor to use with them to help them gain perspective on what they were going through. It’s funny now to be turning my own logic on myself; but hey, wisdom is wisdom and if the situation fits, who am I to fight it? Genesis 12:1 says:

This always struck me. God said, first leave, then I’ll tell you where to go. You can’t sit around and wait to figure out a destination; it’ll only be shown to you once you’re already underway. Hmmmm. So sometimes you take a leap of faith, leave the comfort of what you know and strike out into the unknown. I did this a bit when I moved out here to California, only then I had a known destination and a general life direction. Right now I have neither, at least not solidly yet. And you know what? That’s alright. It has to be. I’m going somewhere, I’m just not quite sure where yet. That will resolve itself shortly, and if it doesn’t and I end up clambering back on the the back of the bull, oh well. It’s not dull. I’m grateful for this week’s ride. I made it through the eight seconds without flying off. Now I can dismount, get my legs back steady under me and keep right on walking. It’s all good.

I’ve started and stopped writing this blog three times–getting a paragraph into it then hitting the delete key and erasing it all. The truth is, I’m really tired this evening. So my ability to express thoughts in a coherent fashion is somewhat impaired. My apologies.

I am grateful this evening for many things. From the time I jolted awake this morning around 5:30 a.m. until now, dozens of things have brought me to a place of gratitude. I realized that this is how I live my life now–like a flower or plant that leans toward the sun, I lean toward gratitude. I cultivate and nurture a heart that looks for–and finds–reasons to thank God or whomever one offers thanks to. I am also coming to understand that, while I have for most of my life I have been a grateful person, the difficulties I’ve faced over the past 18 months have sharpened that attribute, heightening my awareness of all that I have to be grateful for at a time when everything seemed to be collapsing around me. I have been forged in the fires of challenging circumstances, and while there have been many times I’ve cursed all these wonderful growth-producing experiences, I know that I really am a stronger person because of the things I’ve been through. I guess what doesn’t kill you (do you in) really does make you stronger. Go figure.

I know I’ve been promising my faithful readers that I will get more articulate and expressive and insightful with these blogs, and I will. Unfortunately, tonight is not the night! I have given it the proverbial old college try and fallen a bit short. However, I can offer words from someone else more articulate than I am tonight by sharing again one of my favorite poems of standing strong in the midst of troubles. I offer once again the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley:

Sometimes it can feel really good to know something, be able to answer someone’s question, provide information, to offer an informed opinion. Today at work I was laughing with a colleague about what I was going to do over the next few days when she’s on vacation and I am the go-to person for questions or issues that arise concerning the project I’ve been working with her on for the past six months. She was emailing our various contacts to let them know to address their questions to me.

“Be sure to let them know I don’t know anything,” I called to her when she told me what she was doing. “Set their expectations very low!”

We both laughed and she tsk’ed at me, reminding me that I now know a lot about the project, a lot more than I did going in, that’s for sure.

When I first started doing contract work with this nonprofit organization I knew virtually nothing about the industry: affordable housing for seniors. The work deals with millions of dollars in loans and government contracts, construction and building designs, mortgages and financing. It is an entirely different world from where I’ve spent my career, with a language all its own. Very early on in my time there I felt almost embarrassingly ignorant. And yet, the three or four principal coworkers with whom I interact most closely were incredibly patient with my lack of understanding, giving me just enough information to get me started, then with a great deal of trust and confidence that I didn’t have myself, turned me loose to do the work, assuming I would learn as I went along. And darned if I didn’t.

Now I can hardly claim to be an expert in affordable housing, but over the course of the months since I began working for this organization, I can say that I’ve become more expert in a few of the processes that a property needs to go through in order to meet certain government programs. I’ve put together applications full of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of pages of documents, most of which are written in or contain that odd language I mentioned earlier. I was relieved to learn that even the folks I work with who have been working in the field for many years are often baffled by the various vagaries and inconsistencies of government rules and programs.

Over the past weeks I’ve worked steadily with growing confidence that I actually know a thing or two about this stuff I’ve been muddling through since February. It’s a very good feeling, too, to know that I can learn new things and by working hard can contribute pretty much anywhere I’m placed, no matter how alien the work might be to what I know how to do. This is an important skill for someone who is job hunting to have. Now if I can just convince people to give me a chance to show what I can do, I’m sure to wow them.

I’m grateful tonight to have a really good mind. There have been times in the midst of these months of unemployment when self doubt and bruised self esteem have had me all but convinced that I have no skills or competencies to offer to anyone. But that simply isn’t true, and if I need evidence, I need look no further than the work I’ve done over the past six months, learning and contributing to a field I knew little to nothing about. I have skills, gifts, and experiences to share with whomever might choose to hire me, whether it’s an area I’ve worked in before or not. All I really need is the opportunity to show what I’m capable of and what I’m made of. It definitely feels good to know something, and it feels really good to know a lot of somethings! I’m grateful to recognize that for the gift that it s.

I am pondering another brief hiatus from writing this daily blog. I hit these days when I watch the balefully blinking cursor flashing against the stark white text box and realize I have temporarily lost the ability to express myself in any coherent fashion whatsoever. When I arrive at those days a few times per week it gives me pause. When I have two of them in a row, it’s time for serious reflection. You will note that I said pondering a hiatus; I haven’t actually decided one way or another. I do know that serious consideration is in order.

Gratitude is a wonderful, deeply worthy feeling to experience, reflect on and express on a regular (several times per day) basis. Focusing on the good things that occur over the course of a day, week , month, year, lifetime is a very worthwhile practice indeed. It is a practice that has held me up at times when I wanted to lay down and give up (though I have no real idea what that might look like.) It has taught me to search for the beauty in some of the small, quiet, hard-to-reach places in my life, finding things to be grateful for in the sounds of nature coming to life in the morning or in the comical sight of the wild turkeys roaming with their young broods grazing on the wild blackberries that grow profusely at the edge of the back parking lot. I am grateful for the basics in life that I have enjoyed without having to think about them–clean water to drink, warm water to bathe in, safe shelter, access to good, nutritious food. I am grateful for the people in my life–family and friends whose love and support sustain and enrich me.

I have much to be grateful for and will continue to express gratitude on a semi-regular basis, as best I can for as long as I can. I am coming into a somewhat intense time over the next couple of weeks that might draw my attention away from daily blog writing. My hope will be to stick with it throughout this time and see what happens, but can’t guarantee daily food for thought. No matter what, I am grateful to those readers who come along with me regularly on this journey. Thank you for your interest. Stay tuned. Better things are coming. In the meantime, let’s be grateful.