The daily slog

Oh why is it so hard to be grateful and easy to be grumpy? Easy to feel sorry for yourself and hard to feel thankful? When you work in a job where you're supposed to be cynical, it's easy to be an ass and make excuses for why you have to be that way. And it's convenient to complain all the time. I do a good job of that. For extra measure, I worry all the time, too.

Here's to a renewed effort toward gratitude. I'm grateful that so far my basement is dry despite the flooding that seems to be hitting everywhere this summer. Also, for a roof over my head, for a job that pays the bills and food in the kitchen. That's the laziest gratitude list I've ever written since being grateful for life's necessities is not putting any thought into this exercise at all. But here I'll start ... some days I'm more of a work in progress than others.

Spring at last

The sun is shining, the joggers are out, the grass is green. Is there a better time of year?

Spring can't help but make you grateful. Grateful it isn't dark seemingly all the time. Grateful you can open the windows and get fresh air. Go for a walk. Plant flowers. It feels so beautiful you wonder how it could have ever been winter.

Now to enjoy it ... and not to get bogged down in the worries of life.

Dog days of winter

OK, it's that slumping time of year when the days are dark, it's cold-cold-cold and too much time is spent bundling up for work or sitting under a blanket on the couch while staring blankly at the TV. Here's my list of gratitude to get things looking up in mid-February.

It's good to have an understanding boss, who has the grace to forgive when you get mouthy and question his decision-making. Whew. I'd like not to have a repeat of my professional meltdown on Tuesday.

Second, I'm grateful to have a sport I love to play - basketball - and a league in which to play it. It still clears my mind, still wipes away (most) all my other worries for the time being. It allows me to be in the moment without struggling to get there. I never feel awkwardly tall. I feel advantageously tall. I don't feel self conscious or a need to try and blend in the background. I love that so many other grown women also feel the passion and competitive edge for the sport.

C'est tout, for now.

A new year

Well, here I am in 2010. I have been thinking that this blog needs to have some purpose or it's pointless for me to write here. I wondered, is a blog about gratitude enough? I've decided it is.

The state of being grateful; thankfulness.

I'd like to be in that state more frequently this year. I learned just before the new year that a good friend had died in an explosion. Sudden, tragic beyond all measure of words. So many have said eloquent things about her, and I feel almost reluctant to write because I can't do justice to the loss of such a person.

I remember how I used to leave myself notes at night that contained reminders like "Get up at 7!" and "Go for a jog before work!" Sometimes, if I was in a deep rut, I would write out a morning schedule, laying out what time I should get up, shower, eat breakfast and get out the door - admonishing myself not to be late for work or lay in bed and hit snooze over and over. I told my friend I did this because my night self was better-intentioned than my morning self. How she laughed and teased me about that. I don't write those notes anymore. But I pledge to try and be my better self this year, as a testament to the kind of positive life she lived. I know she was an uplifting influence on so many. Even on those mornings where it seems impossible to drag myself out of bed, I know I'm lucky to be here, navigating myself through life on the best course I can find.

Here's to being grateful. To being here.