Hello Friend,
I hope you and yours have enjoyed this holiday season, whatever it looked like for you this year. Mine was not as expected, but I'm okay with that. It has hiven me unplanned time for reflection. And that has proven to be a welcome gift.
Gratitude comes in many ways, but often we wait until we have lost someone or something to realize how important they were or it was to us. I’m afraid I’ve lived this way for a long time. Yes, I express my gratitude, but I’m not sure I really felt it the same way that you do when it's no longer there.
This year, I was blessed to gain some clarity from a loss that woke me up a little. I hope I can hold onto it by taking a moment to acknowledge the wisdom I’ve gained.
I am grateful for soooo many people and soo much grace that I’ve been given n my life. Of course there are things like a warm home, good food, clothes, and art supplies.
But most of all are the beings that give my life meaning.
I could write a list a mile long of all the people and plants and animals and insects and mushrooms that I'm grateful for. In fact I started to do just that. I wrote pages and pages of lovely words trying to imagine what I could possibly say to coonvey how much my family, friends, community, bees, trees, and garden all mean to me.
But it felt like I was falling short. Words can't really express the gratitude I feel in my heart.
And I am quite certain I would unintensionally leave out someone really important to me.
Honestly, I am just so damn grateful to be here. To get to be touched by so many lives. I am beyond grateful for this body of mine that has been bruised and battered by its owner, but it keeps on trying its best for me. I am grateful to be able to see my kid's face, and taste warm tea made by my loving hubby, and feel cold frosty air on my face, and hear music, and smell my beehive when it has been warmed by the sun. This is what life is all about. And I get to do it.
And I get to do it when it's uncomfortable and heartbreaking. I get to feel that too.
And I get to do it when I feel helpless and my body hurts, or isn't working the way I want it to.
And I get to share my experinece with others, and they get to share theirs with me. Even when it's really painful - especially when it's really painful.
I feel so grateful for that too - maybe even moreso.
Because I get to grow and evolve and stretch. And I get to see how much beauty is in the hard stuff. And how messy and complicated and simple and strange it all is at the same time. It's what makes it all real. And I guess I'm really grateful for being real.
Thank you for keeping it real with me. Than you for your support and for reading these rambling thoughts of mine. Wishing you some peace of mind! Sending you love!
With gratitude - always!