Today, I am thankful for our new toaster oven, which has allowed us to get rid of our microwave, toaster, and dehydrator. I love multi-functional things as much as I love minimizing clutter.
But more importantly, I love the pizza bagels and little garlic triscuit pizzas I just made.
Today I am grateful for the freedom to work remotely, a reasonable and fair supervisor, and a ride home, so I don’t have to ride my bike in the cold, take a bus, or Uber. I am one lucky duck.
Tonight, I am happy about my warm bed that feels like a cloud. Reading a pretty decent book (Educated by Tara Westover), with Sawyer leaning up against me, receiving pets.
Today I am thankful for the birth of my husband, Marc. Since he came into my life, everything has improved greatly. More than words can express. And it’s only going to get better.
Today I am thankful for no plans, multiple streaming services, warmth, leftovers, and no desire to partake in Black Friday.
Thanksgiving 2020 seems like a very classic date to re-start my gratitude journal here. My goal is to post more regularly, maybe start with 3x a week, up it to 4x a week, eventually daily. Rewiring the brain takes time and a whole hell of a lot of effort. Sometimes, I just can’t do it and I slip into this kind of person that I don’t really like. Expressing gratitude is important. I have felt off lately, and I’m convinced it’s because I have been focusing too much on negatives, looking for things to be upset or annoyed by. Nobody wants to live like that, we should be looking for things to be happy about.
Today, I am grateful that I get to stay cozy in my pajamas and slippers. We slept in until NINE AM! The fridge is stocked. We have a feast planned. We have cocktails planned. An apple scented candle is burning. The apartment is clean. There is no stress, zero social anxiety, puppy cuddles, and cooking together time with my favorite person.
It is 8:30 PM on a Tuesday. I am in bed, looking at my phone. I’ve been browsing the internet for a new dish sponge, for the last hour.
The reason? I don’t like using regular sponges directly with my hands, it ruins my nails, dries out skin, and leaves my fingers smelling of old dish water smells. It’s gross, I don’t understand how anybody uses a regular sponge more than once. So, I need a wand, but am tired of replacing plastic wands and disposal sponge heads for these wands. I want something more sustainable, but long-lasting. It’s apparently hard to come by.
Anyway, in the midst of my frustrations, I realize… If this were ten years ago, I’d be so disgusted with myself and this boringness. I’d be embarrassed with myself.
But ya know what? This is who I am. This is what occupies my mind. I love my bed, I love getting as much sleep as humanly possible, I love cleaning products that make my life easier. I am perfectly content with being this kind of person.
Of course, ten years in the future, hoping to have a dishwasher.
Today I am thankful for the reminder that I have survived 100% of what I have lived through.
Whatever life throws at me will be interesting, enlightening, and just the kind of challenge I enjoy.
Today, I am thankful to have an answer to what’s been plaguing me and my body for the last two years of my life.
A little background, my body hurt. My back hurt (more than usual). My hips hurt, constantly. At one point, I had sciatica so bad I couldn’t walk for three days, not an exaggeration. I got constant headaches, migraines, lights hurt my eyes. I could hear this crunching sound in the back of my neck whenever I ascended stairs. I could hear crinkling in my left ear, randomly, which… let me tell you… freaked me the hell out.
I went to a doctor, who referred me to another doctor, who referred me to another. I had hearing tests, I had balance tests, I saw a chiropractor, I tried acupuncture, I tried muscle relaxers. Everything helped, but only temporarily. Every doctor I saw was basically, in a rush, and contributed it to stress. One doc after another, “you sure you’re not stressed?”
No, I did not consider myself stressed, at the time. But the idea of everyone telling me that I was stressed made me doubt myself and my entire existence. “Am I really super stressed and lying to myself? Am I THAT out of tune with my emotions? Do I not know my boundaries? Is my body trying to tell me I can’t handle this? Do I really not know how much I can handle? Can I handle nothing? Who am I? What is this?!?!”
Let me tell ya something else… worrying about being stressed, stressed me the f out.
Fast forward to two months ago, I sprain my ankle, which totally sucks. It has been really really really annoying. I put off going to a doctor because of covid, but when it started to get worse, I finally went. X-ray, MRI, weeks of chasing MRI results. I am now in physical therapy.
I have learned that a sprain from 17 years ago did not heal properly, making this sprain kind of on top of that. But more recently, and more pressing, a toe fracture that happened two years ago never healed. I thought it got better, but what actually happened was I accommodated the pain and gradually walked differently on that foot. Which is another way of saying, I walked crooked, but only on one foot. That crookedness moved up my body and fucked my shit up.
This accommodation can be attributed to every single detail of all my discomfort over the last two years. It was never stress, it was simply my tendency to be overly accommodating, even when it hurts me. *Insert mind blowing up here*
Yes, I need to strength my ankle. And yes, I need to keep my stress level in check. But the bigger picture here is self care is a real thing. You don’t have to be stressed to take a step back and take care of yourself. If I had done that two years ago, I wouldn’t be dealing with this ankle situation right now.
Today, I am thankful to be in an industry that is not hurting too much from this pandemic.
If I had not made the moves I have made, I could still be at a ticket brokerage, which has no events to sell tickets for. Or a real estate company, which has very little listings for the few people who are still looking to buy right now. I would for sure be on the chopping block at either of those places.
Instead, I am busier now, working from home, more hours than I was in the office. I LOVE the people I work with, we are all great at communicating, from a distance. I could not love the work I do, more. And I don’t feel too stressed out, because I feel very supported.
I am in a really great place right now, while the whole world is freaking out. It’s such a crazy feeling, when I sit back and think about it. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
