On Gratitude

For 75 days, I've been thankful. 

I was thankful for big things like my family and my friends.

I was thankful for abstract things like inspiration.

I was thankful for small things like fuzzy socks.

I was thankful for fun things like Kevin Bacon.

Most days, I listed three things.  Some days, I doubled up and listed six.

This week, Thanksgiving arrives on Thursday.  I've been thankful all up and through it.

My favorite Thanksgiving cookies -- get them from Southpaw Sweets

 -- Thanks S!

 Being thankful has been difficult. 

It has been challenging on the days when all I want to do is rant about stress and stupidity.  However, in listing those things for which I am grateful, I have found a way to spread the positivity rather than dive into the negative, the latter of which is much easier.

It has been most challenging on the days when I've felt like I've been hit by a car.  I was, in fact, hit by a car when I was driving my own car back in January, and now I have daily pain in my back.  It would have been so easy--75 days of aches and pains, new twinges, deeper spasms, a constant search for relief.  I would  have garnered commiseration of those in pain and probably sympathy from others, but that probably would have have sustained as the main reaction.  After 75 days of complaints, people probably would have unsubscribed to my FB feed because I was bringing on the misery.

Instead, I sat and searched until I found whatever I could label as a highlight in my life.  Some days, quite frankly, I felt like a fraud.  I mean, who needs to sit around and really think that hard about what to be thankful for?  In my defense, I was not repeating, so I could have said "my husband" every single day, but again, who wants to hear how much I'm grateful to have a great husband every single day?  Well, probably Eddie and our parents, but that's about it. 

So fraudulent or not, whether or not the moment of gratitude did its trick for the day in making me or anyone else feel more positive, I plowed on.

75 days is not such a long time, and I wondered how long I'd be doing it.  I mean, even thankfulness can get old: Ugh, there's that Christina Farone again, trying to be all grateful and shit on a daily basis--Unsubscribe!

Since Thanksgiving is here, I'm thinking it's a perfect time to roll up all that thankfulness and give it a final release into the universe.  I might post every now and then a moment of gratitude, but not as a regimented activity.  It'll be genuine, though now more than ever, I'm more aware of those moments when they hit.  I will not fall back into a world of negative comments, but I will share both sides of the coin--the heads of thanks and the tails of woe.  See that?  A pun.  I'm a poet.

Thanks for indulging. Hey, look at that!  Day 76: one final thanks to everyone who followed and commented.  Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.