ya know it's not like i'm grateful for everything.
there's a lotta hard stuff here too.
a whole lotta hard stuff.
and there's annoying stuff.
and there's heartbreaking stuff.
and heavy stuff.
and stuff that makes me really angry
and really scared.
and really really sad.
it's not like it's all good, ya know?
i could drop ten heartbreaking stories on you
without even having to dig to find them.
i totally get it's not all goodness and light.
i totally get that.
i can't honestly say i'm grateful for all those
things individually.
i tried to be.
i tried to think about it yesterday.
i want to hold the all, ya know?
so i sat with the ick and the heartbreak and the sorrow.
i pulled them apart, set them on the table and looked
at them and shook my head and thought nooooooo i'm not
really grateful for that one or that one....
and certainly not that one.
what's to feel grateful for about that one?
i mean, really??
i can't do it that way. i get stuck.
but when i take it all and mix it all together.
the inspiring and the incredibly good and loving
with the ugly and the frightening...when i mix
it all together.......
then i can do it.
then i feel deep gratitude.
that makes me think of a recipe.
of all the ingredients you mix in.
some i won't even taste on their own....but mixed
together....it's another story.
i think the bottom line is that the older i get, the more
i see how challenging life is, and the more i see there's
a beauty in that very challenge. i really think that's
sinking in more and more.
and tho i can't put into words the feeling inside of me
when i think of what life is, i honestly do feel like it's
the gift of gifts. and i honestly feel a real deep gratefulness
for being able to be here right now at this moment and for
even being able to try to be love.
i may never make it like i want to make it.
but as i keep stressing these days...it's not the goal.
it's the process.
and for being able to experience the process...
there is such a gratitude for that today.
the sorrow and heartbreak and pain and suffering is not gone
today. it's here all around. but so is the other. so is the other.
and for the love we offer each other...i am so darn grateful.
and somehow, i can't even explain it...there really is a gratefulness
for the all.
happy thanksgiving.
5 comments:
LOL ~ i followed evert twist and turn of your gratituded post terri and i'm thankful i did (;-p) because i've been trying to be grateful for all too, look for the higher lessen in the depths of pain...but man oh man, that's daunting! So my heart-words friend, you've acknowledged the ugly once again, and that makes me feel OK...normal, and oh so freaking human in the moment of trying to be the unrealistic but ever-grateful-for-the-blows supermom/woman.
WRO xo
WHy am I thinking of Mary Poppins singing Just a spoonful of medicine helps the medicine go down?
Like you say, taking some of the really icky painful things in life all by themselves is not easy. But throw in a story of gratitude, or kindness, or faith, or a bear hug and it so much easier to handle.
Or take being alone and afraid, in pain or darkness. I'd say it's downright impossible to fee gratitude for that. But add a friend to hold your hand, or someone at the other end of a computer listening with her heart, or a smile from someone who says, "I understand" and you've got a recipe for acceptance.
Thanks, Ter, for being the sugar that helps lots of people swallow their medicine.
P.S.
To call you sugar sounds a little too Southern or a little too "sugary". I meant that in only the sincerest of ways.
Thank You Ter, for putting into words what I think alot of us feel...
Happy Thanksgiving...I am grateful for You, the process it took to create a space to find you, and the lessons that have come as a result of it all...
Hard to think a whole year has gone by already and those darkest days of last year but things are getting better, little by little and part of it was your honoring of my story when I was reaching out...so yes, I am grateful, very grateful!
It is not the happy people who are grateful, it is the grateful people who are happy. ~Happy Thanksgiving~
Post a Comment