A Year of Gratitude – August 30, 2024

My gratitude came in a reminder from the garden today. My morning didn’t start in a way that felt positive. Do you ever have a morning that just feels like it is topsy turvy from the moment you get out of bed?

I was feeling that way. I was doing my best to keep moving forward, keep working my way down my to do list. Somehow, that list seems to get longer every day rather than shorter no matter how hard I try to cross items off.

I know that’s just the nature of life. You cross one task off and it hands you three more. On most days, I can take that in stride. I can just add to the list and keep going.

This morning, I was feeling the weight of it. I was struggling with just how heavy our to dos and have tos can be. In a moment like that, those tasks feel like they are weighing me down, keeping me from doing things that I want to do, things that I want to try.

Again, that’s the nature of life. But sometimes it can feel like the moment to try those new things has passed. As I age, I feel that more. I think of something I wanted to do and can feel myself accept that it’s too late for me to try.

I do my best to shake that notion away. I truly don’t feel that it is ever too late to try something new, to learn something new. I would encourage anyone else to try, to reach, to stretch a muscle (physically or mentally) in a new direction.

Yet I often don’t show myself that same encouragement. I resign myself to saying that I’m past the age of being able to try. I know that I shouldn’t, but if I’m being honest, I do.

Then I saw this zinnia. It has barely begun to open into the bold bloom it will become. You can just barely see the petals that will unfurl in the coming days.

It’s late in the season now. This plant has already given us at least a dozen gorgeous blooms. Yet here is this one reaching towards the sunshine, daring to see if it can become the glorious flower it can be before time runs out.

It isn’t cutting its season short. It didn’t decide not to bloom. I could learn a lot from this blossom. I’ll try to. I’ll reach myself towards the sunshine and take a deep breath. Then I’ll remind myself that as long as there’s daylight and sunshine, I have the ability to try, to reach, to grow. And then I’ll get busy doing 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.