Early Thanksgiving


Wherein Our Heroine Takes Stock.

I am going to focus on the positive today. It's about time. If I looked back over my daily entries, there's probably a perfect sine wave of gentle, peaceful musings on geraniums and vocabulary, descending slightly through irritation at deer and the process of job-hunting, plunging into a wail of outrage over obliviousness and the vagaries of the mass media, then ascending slightly into bemused wonderment at auctorial insanity and only slightly sarcastic lectures about voting, finally ending up at gentle, peaceful musings on pets and the upcoming movie "Serenity."

And yet, you politely bear with me, Dear Reader. Thank you for that.

One of the tapes I use to support me in my Yoga practice ends by asking you to think of something you are grateful for. Usually, I am simply grateful for my Yoga practice. The balance between focus and general awareness, effort and relaxation seems to take everything else that gets to me and lighten it up a bit. It is still there, mind you, it just doesn't bother me the way it does before I practice.

But there are a couple of other things I am particularly grateful for at the moment (and this is not an exhaustive list). My husband - patient man that he is - has borne through this period of job-hunting and the intense anxiety that led up to it. He is known for his ability to worry and fret, yet he has not expressed any anxiety about this process (except when he worries that I am getting too stressed out). He has been undeniably and unwaveringly supportive through ups, downs, hard decisions, and setbacks. My friends, who are doing huge things like getting engaged, having children, and buying houses - I am grateful for their examples of life moving forward, even as I feel mine is temporarily stagnant. I am even grateful for the opportunity to help Maria and Pat (new home-owners) move - come Halloween weekend, I'll be lifting with my legs (not my back) and looking forward to steaks and beer as my just reward.

In other words, to try to hammer some perspective into my own head: the current lack of employment is not all. Stop and smell the autumn leaves.

What are you grateful for today?

Posted: Friday - October 01, 2004 at 08:21 AM         | |


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