A Year of Gratitude – March 22, 2024
Gratitude can come from quiet places. Mine does tonight. I am settled in on the couch with a sleeping Penny Lane. The pellet stove is keeping us cozy while we await a weekend storm that can’t decide if we’ll get inches of snow or heavy rain and wind.
It’s been a difficult week from start to finish. The individual days seem to have blended into one another. It’s hard to separate one from the rest. They became tangled up in each other like a ball of yarn that I just can’t seem to untangle.
It’s been the sort of week that wears you down until it feels like there’s nothing left. Each day I woke up, hopeful that it would be a bit smoother of a journey. Every day I found that it wasn’t. I could only take a deep breath and hope that the next day would be the day I would catch my footing, find solid ground beneath my feet.
It’s exhausting to have a week like this. I know that I’m not alone. I’m sure that plenty of you faced what felt like insurmountable challenges. I’m sure plenty of you have found yourself at the end of this week feeling as though you have been wrung out.
If you did, I hope that you’ll give yourself a moment to take a deep breath, to push the week’s transgressions away just enough to create a bit of space around yourself. Make a cozy bubble for yourself like I have with Penny Lane. This is the first time all week I have felt myself exhale and let go of some of the tension I have been carrying. It’s such a relief to do that.
It doesn’t erase the difficulties of the past few days or the ones that lie ahead. But, for this moment, I can try to find my way to a peaceful place. I can try to just be in this moment because worrying about the moments to come or the moments already lived won’t change them. The worry will just prevent me from finding joy and peace in this moment.
So, I will sit here under a pile of blankets with my sleeping dog. I have a cup of warm tea and a favorite old movie streaming on the television. It might not seem like a very exciting Friday night, but for me, it’s exactly the place I want to be. I’m grateful that I get to be here in this moment and that I pushed the week aside just enough to enjoy it.
This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.