National Day of Gratitude

I follow Christian author Anne Lamott on Facebook. She seems to have this uncanny ability to know when I need a pick me up, in spite of the fact that I'm kind of agnostic about this whole God-thing. My feeling is that he's up there, but there are so many people; some I know personally; who need him way more than me, that he's busy. He just sort of looks in on me occasionally and then goes back to tending the flock of those who are really in need of a faith boost.

Today, when I logged into Facebook, Anne had a picture in her feed. It's National Gratitude Day. Of course her bent was for us to be grateful to have a loving God looking over us. My take is a bit different.

I could spend hours typing the things for which I'm grateful and that list would run into the hundreds or even thousands of items. Today, for instance, when I think about it, I'm grateful for spoons. I'm grateful for the yogurt which needed a spoon to eat. I'm grateful for water and for the bottled water I'm consuming more after having gone through a summer of relying upon soda. I'm grateful for Priority Mail from the post office. I'm grateful for electricity. I'm grateful for Google Maps. (Oooh. Those houses are an hour apart. I can do an inspection and a complaint in a day.) I'm grateful for hand lotion and wonderfully smelling liquid hand soap. I'm grateful for people giving specific directions to their place of business. I'm grateful for gasoline to get me to those places of business. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I was, ironically, thinking of this over the weekend. I did laundry and I am grateful to Patt and Pam for giving me, this summer, probably the best gift they have given me, other than their friendship. They did laundry for me. Getting ahead, having nothing that needed to be done in that month while I saved for a new washer has meant the world in terms of quality of life. In August, when I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, the knowledge that I didn't have mountains of laundry to do meant the naps I took when I came home from work were done without guilt. Both of them are so smart. They can see what I need way before I see it. This is but one example.

It's easy to fall into the "oh woe is me" trap. I know this well. When one thing happens, another thing happens and then a third thing happens and it can snowball. It's so very human of us to look at our lives and think we're never going to catch a break rather than what is good about even a bad day. I'm so guilty of that myself. When I pass through those pot holes and come out on the other side, I feel like banging my head on my desk. "You dolt! You didn't practice what you preach. It was never as bad as you made it out to be." Our human nature gets the best of us.

It's good to have a refresher. Every day should be Gratitude Day. I need to remember that every day has something for which to be grateful. I tell those going through a bad piece that it's okay to wallow, to throw yourself a pity party, but only for an hour. Then hoist up your big girl panties, as the aphorism says, and deal with the issue at hand. Plus, remember that you awoke in the morning even if it was to bad news or a slog through a figurative molasses river, uphill, in the winter and barefoot.

So, I am grateful for my family and my friends. I'm grateful for a lot of things, small as well as large. I should be grateful every day and this date reminds me to do that.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Another Anniversary

I've been musing about this anniversary for some time now, trying to decide exactly what to say. On April 4, 2001, my divorce became final. It's been ten years, ten years of singleness although the marriage counselor suggested the "single" had been going on a lot longer.

I've been musing on what these last ten years have taught me, brought me and changed me.

I'm stronger than I ever imagined myself to be. As I march toward the second year of blogging, regular readers know it has not been a good two years. I have endured things I never imagined myself enduring. I have had to teach myself things I never wanted to learn. I have made painful decisions but still find myself procrastinating on others. Every day is what it is. I quit wishing things were different. If I want things to be different, it's my job to make them different. In those choices, I have found a well of strength to carry on.

I have been brought all manner of trial and tribulation. I flat out reject the idea that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle". My view of God is that he wouldn't, if he were this entity that loves me, willingly toss all this on my plate. Even if every trial is supposed to be a "teaching moment", why would someone who loves me destroy my world multiple times in varying degrees to the point that my complete loss of self-esteem occurred? Humans, with their distorted views on what is good and right and necessary, cause these problems. Sometimes, God is with me. Most of the time, I feel he's a nebulous entity looking in on me to make sure I haven't made off with the silver.

What I have found are the people brought into my life at times when I need them most. The person who sent the anonymous Target cards; the friends who bought breakfast, lunch and dinner; the friends who called to say, "Talk to me"; have made the past 10 years rich. I've gained friends and I've lost friends. Each person whose path has crossed mine has enriched me more than I feel I have enriched them.

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, said, "Nothing endures but change". This has been variously translated into the aphorism we all know, "The only constant is change". That would be the summation of the past ten years. I felt empowered in walking away from a failed marriage. I was taking control of my life. I had tried and what I attempted had failed. I grieved and I moved on. It was anger that drove me forward.

There is anger still. It's a different kind of anger and it's easy to recognize and deal with. I spent some time in sadness. I don't get sad about the divorce anymore. I do get depressed at my life and there are weeks when that's the proverbial "800-pound gorilla in the room". But I fall back on my tried and true aphorism, "It is what it is" and I move on.

I have seen my daughter go from an insecure high school student to a smart, self-assured, confident married woman. I have said goodbye to 5 cats, welcomed 2 more. My health has changed and I find I endure things that only come with age. "Why does that hurt?", is something I've been known to say more often now.

In 10 years, a child goes from totally dependent to somewhat independent. In a way, I feel like that child. There were a lot of things I was doing on my own before the divorce. That single gavel fall in a courtroom shoved the neophyte out the door and into a world she wasn't quite prepared to tackle on her own. I've made some really stupid mistakes and some really brilliant decisions. Some days, being single feels like a carrying a ton. I'd give almost anything to have someone else make dinner, do the wash, talk to me. And then the notion passes and, as I eat popcorn for supper, I'm very glad I don't have to answer to anyone. I would, if given the chance and the right person, travel this road as a couple. The burdens are easier to carry, the loads lighter and the laughter richer when shared, but that person has eluded me and may never, ever come. That last statement is something I'm learning to embrace.

So, here's to me. It's been quite a journey over these last 10 years, a journey I thought I wouldn't ever make. Had we found a way to stay together, it would have been 33 years this June. That would have been an achievement. As it is, I am living my life my way, with all its bumps and potholes and moments of joy.

Beverage:  Earl Gray tea

Deb

A Blessing or Just Luck?

A friend of mine, whom I know only from World of Warcraft, has been talking about how blessed he is.

If you know me very well, you know I have issues with the institutionalized church. I felt the flavor (Lutheran) where I happened to worship God let me down in a big way when I divorced. Carole and I were openly shunned by members of the hierarchy of that particular building. When I asked if there were any programs for people going through divorce, the Bishop of the church himself said there was nothing official. Ministering to people like me was left to individual churches. I was, pretty much, on my own. The Catholic Church has divorce groups for people and they don't let you partake of church sacraments if you divorce. The Lutheran Church seemed to just pat you on the head and say, "It'll all be better. Now run along and play."

Hence I have, for the last 10 years, wrestled with this notion of a God who even cares, let alone passes blessings my way. A lot in my life would support the notion of a God who is "up there", probably loves me, but is relatively inactive in my life. Now, I'm not looking for a "Dear God, please cure my pen pal of her cancer." Or even a "Dear God, I really need a parking space in downtown Glen Ellyn." I do pray, on occasion, for others. I rarely pray for myself. If you've seen the movie "Bruce Almighty", remember the scene where Jim Carrey sits down at his computer to look at prayer requests and there are something like 3 million of them, just from a 20 block area. It's overload in deciding which one to grant and which to deny.

In a way, I feel God is like that. He gets so many prayers every nanosecond of every day that my simple, "Please give Charly a reason to smile today" goes unnoticed. It's not that I'm mad at God. I went through that when my dad died. It's just that God is busy elsewhere; Haiti, China, Iceland, down the street, that my little prayers get swallowed up by the whole. And when life kicks me yet again, especially when I've given my best and my best isn't good enough, it's hard to feel there is any sort of activity between this God and me. So Jon's occasional "I am so blessed" statements always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

I spent last month making a conscious decision to change how I viewed my luck or lack thereof. The $14 slim paperback book I bought last year came down to a perception issue. Lucky people see themselves as lucky and see set backs as simply different views of luck. It was suggested to keep a luck journal, the book at the top, and write down every lucky thing that happened in the course of a day.

This was a challenge on some days. I started out with one entry per day, something as simple as "I am lucky I don't have any other person living with me. I can eat what I want when I want, sleep as long as I want, shower when I feel like it on weekends and, essentially, do my own thing." The longer I did this, the more small items I found that I could classify as "good luck". I found myself filling a page with things. Who knew there were so many things one could feel lucky about.

The best thing to come from this experiment was the change in my attitude and here's where the notion of blessings comes in. I felt kicked in the teeth by the bank, stomped on, used. Yet, it is what it is and I can't change things. I have emailed the situation to my representatives and my attorney general and the Better Business Bureau. I no more hold the hope that they will do anything and, in my email, I did not ask for anything. I said I simply wanted them to know what's happened to me and how this is not, as far as this consumer is concerned, bank reform. To date, I have heard back from the BBB and the attorney general's office and those were standard, "Thank you for sending us feedback" emails. I was upset on the 14th and then I let it go. No good can come from stewing about it. I move on. I recognize my change of attitude as coming directly from forcing myself to see things in light of good luck rather than bad.

So when Jon mentioned being blessed on the 12th, I sort of dismissed his comment, mentally giving him a pat on the head, a lollipop and sending him out the door to play with his friends. But the next day, I went to Iowa to fix a machine and I could not get his comment out of my head. "I am so blessed." Just what the hell does that mean and why is it pestering me like a sliver?

All the way to and from Iowa, I thought and thought about this. It was a glorious day. "I was blessed" to be driving to Iowa on a day such as that. "I was blessed" to have the machine call in the first time. "I was blessed" to have a dollar to pay the toll to go over the railroad bridge in Fort Madison. "I was blessed" to come home to two cats who were very, very happy to see me. "I was blessed" to have wonderful jazz CD's to listen to out and back. I could sit in my settee and make an arm's length list of all the ways I was blessed. Maybe there is something to this.

Of course, the afternoon of the 13th, I rather hit a wall at full steam when I discovered the problems with my checking account. I came home and grieved. The next day, as we had a company function to attend in the evening, I was sent home at noon since there's no overtime being paid until the economy gets better. I channeled the anger into emails and looked at my accounts. I discovered my math wasn't the best (Why are you not surprised?) and I have a small bit of funds as a cushion in the account. It still doesn't make up for a $74 overdraft charge but everything is accounted for and I'm in the black. I found credit on one card and was able to fill my gas tank and get $10 worth of groceries which included kitty treats. That evening, at the event, I was asked to draw numbers for the cash door prizes and drew Rodney's number. While it wasn't mine, he can use the cash as much as I can and he had never won. That is definately a blessing.

My journal has gone from a "Luck" journal to a "Blessing" journal. I need to be reminded that when things appear bad, I have much that is a blessing. It can be as simple as a big black cat lying in my lap purring to as grand as my clan buying me a brand new tent and paying the entry fees so I can attend the Illinois St. Andrew Society's Highland Games this year. It's about perspective. Do I think God has his/her hand in this? Meh. Shrug. I don't really know. I just know that by actively looking for the blessings even in the most dour situations, I can think clearer and act accordingly.

I am blessed.

Beverage: China Black Tea

Deb