It’s all turned around and inside out today.
I usually sit down in my blue chair to journal before dawn, but this has been one of those “everything got away from me” weeks, and so I’m writing these words a couple of hours after sunset, or about 12 hours behind. (Actually, I haven’t been in the chair all week, so maybe I’m a day and a half behind, or more.)
Having a cup of coffee after supper is odd. Red is off to town doing something Christmassy, so the house is as quiet as 6 a.m.
I’m working on being grateful this week. It’s easy to focus on losses and lack and how life could be better and would be easier and should be more free — the coulda-woulda-shouldas.
But then there was the couple we knew and loved who said the secret of their happiness was they decided to be content with whatever life brought their way. Their goal in life was to revel in what they had, including each other. Anything more would be a bonus and a blessing.
So I’m more than happy to have this chair to sit in, in a small but comfortable house we built in the country eight years ago, with the heat on, the light bill paid, and a tasty bluegrass band playing on the stereo.
What more could I want? Oh, I want a lot of things, most of all the discipline to finish my novels and such, but this year I’ve finally developed the discipline to blog every day, and that’s a start, isn’t it?
And now, to finish this oh-so-interesting year, I’m cultivating the discipline to blog every day about being glad and grateful.
What I’ve rediscovered is that if you go looking around for what’s good about this life, it’s just as easy to find stuff as it is if you try to find things to grouse about.
This of all seasons is meant to be a season of joy, so I’m grateful. I’m glad to be alive in this time, and not just because “it beats the alternative.”
Look around for reasons to be glad today. I think you’ll agree it feels better.
