Gratitude

It has been so long since I have written here, and so much has happened, that I hardly know where to begin. So instead, I feel compelled to list what I am most thankful for, right now, at this very moment in my life.

I am thankful for T, who really listens to me, who is willing to sit on the phone while I tell her the details of my day and is more patient and calm about whatever I'm saying, more able to be a witness and not a fixer, than anyone I've ever met.
I needed this more than I even realized.

I am grateful for my friend J, who is always honest with me.

I am thankful that I have learned to be a witness, to sit at the edge of a person's pain and hold it without becoming it. Even, when I am most centered, to sit at the edge of my own pain and hold it without becoming it.

I am grateful for my daughter's opportunity to volunteer at the Humane Society, for the board that welcomed her, for the college student H who goes with her. She belongs again in a way that she hasn't in so many years. She is beginning to imagine herself as someone who could care for animals, and make money doing it, sometime in the future.

I am grateful for all the people who have hired her to care for their animals.

I am grateful for the times when I am able to breathe when I think of the future. I am grateful that I now only get a knot in my stomach, a panicked feeling in my throat, about half of the time. I am grateful because I know I am making progress, and that sometime in the future, I will be able to breathe through these moments more, if not all, of the time.

I am grateful that we just learned yesterday that S's littlest brother has found a permanent home. I am praying it will really be permanent, that the family will have the strength and clarity to see him through this year, and the next, and the next, and the rest of his life.

I am grateful for her other brother and his adoptive father, who welcomed us for Thanksgiving, who are now truly a part of our family.

I am grateful that in October I got to perform the weddings of four people I love deeply, for how moving those weddings were, and for the chance to do it all again for another couple I love in January.

I am grateful that, in this culture of immediate gratification and so much uncertainty, people are still willing to commit their lives to each other and to find a way to live in love.

I am grateful for our beautiful live Christmas tree, and for all the people who stopped to help us get it back on the top of our car when it toppled off, and for the moment when my daughter said to me, "We are so lucky to live here. This wouldn't have happened anywhere else."

I am grateful for the students who have helped to create and sustain an ESL program for new immigrants in our community--for their patience with the disorganization and chaos of the day to day struggles of getting such a program up and running, and for sticking it out, lesson plan by lesson plan, day by day.

I am grateful for my new coworker, who has relieved me from 20 hours of work a week and so much more. She is a calm and thoughtful presence who is already making a difference in my stress level in her first month on the job.

I am grateful that my supervisors finally truly heard and took to heart my need for more help.

I am grateful that I have lost almost 20 pounds in the last two months. I am grateful that my decision to focus on my body has led to more energy, to a sense of control over my life, to more self-confidence. I am grateful that I am no longer using food to relieve my stress. I am grateful for Weight Watchers and the awesome people in my meeting.

I am grateful that for the first time since adopting S I'm beginning to make progress on my debt. That I had the clarity to realize that a trip to Greece would have been too much for us, emotionally and financially, this summer.

I am grateful that I have six more months to work with Lisa on a post-high-school plan. I am grateful that even though she hasn't passed all the standardized tests her grades are good, she's working hard, and there is still a way for her to graduate in June.

I am grateful that I was able to run into my ex recently and have a real conversation that contained no bitterness or anger or pain.

I am grateful for the church I attend, and for the amazing minister there. I am praying that, although she'll have to leave, I will be able to keep this church home, or that, at the very least, I'll be able to feel sustained by the time I was able to worship there.

I am grateful for healing, and forgiveness.

I am grateful that my daughter told me today she was the luckiest person alive to have a mom like me--that even when things get hard, I know she gets how much I love her, and how hard I'm trying.

I am grateful that I am feeling happy more often than sad these days. It has been so long since I could say that!