Hugging the Midline

Grateful Again

I've been focused on green issues lately and neglecting my gratitude list. Of course, when I look back over recent posts some of the things I'm grateful for managed to shine through, but I still want to write about them specifically. I've come to believe more and more lately that this is the key to my happiness — taking the time to appreciate all the great things in my life, and then reveling in that appreciation for awhile. So here goes; today I'm grateful for:

36. Perspective — A friend pissed me off yesterday by making some unappreciative comments about my blog ("What's the theme of your blog supposed to be? Is it just some kind of personal diary?"), and for a few minutes I contemplated blogging about it. Well, yes, I am blogging about it, but 36 hours later and I'm able to write about it without committing blog rage (too bad, because I had a cute mean-ish title in mind that now I'll never get to use...). It's nice to finally be at a point in my life in which negative feedback usually bounces off of me pretty quickly, and I know it's more about the person delivering the feedback than about me. Of course, the opposite needs to hold true, too: Lately I've gotten mostly positive feedback about my blog — I've been getting a couple e-mails or comments every day from people telling me a post has made them think about something differently, or maybe inspired them to start a personal diary or gratitude list. Positive feedback is sure more fun than the negative kind, and my ego loves hearing the good stuff. But I try not to let feedback of either flavor affect me too significantly — I try to be strong enough at my core that it doesn't matter what other people say about me. I'm pretty sure this will be a lifelong practice for me, but it's so much better than it used to be.



37. An Occasional Free Pass — Thank God Glen is better than I am about not really taking things personally, and he occasionally lets me be pissy and whiny for no good reason. (Do you have to look over my shoulder while I'm blogging? Do you have to make that sound when you brush your teeth?) It's a privilege I try not to abuse, of course, but it's nice that I can have a little pissy moment now and then without it turning into a fight.



38. Free Stuff — Jack has such a cute wardrobe, as the many pictures of him on this website prove, and I deserve no credit for it. Every item of clothing in his wardrobe is a hand-me-down from my friend Kelly's son Theo, and I couldn't be more grateful. The free clothes save us so much money and time, and Jack always looks like a million bucks.



39. Music — Thanks mostly to Glen, every song from my collection has found its way to my iPod. That's a ridiculous 4,469 songs, enough to play for almost two weeks without a repeat. How did I get so lucky?

Don't Let the Sound of Your Own Wheels Drive You Crazy

Feeling grateful after my weekly four-hour round trip:

20. Glen downloads some great free NPR podcasts that I love listening to in the car. My favorites are This American Life and Radio Lab.



21. I grumble about having to get up while it's still dark on Monday mornings, but I've also come to appreciate the time alone to think. I solve work problems, write posts in my head, dream of a new color scheme for the bathroom inspired by snow-covered branches against the icy blue sky.



22. One thought I had today is that writing this blog is helping me with my perfectionistic tendecies, more precisely my tendency to not even attempt things because of my fear that they won't be perfect. For years I've had pieces and parts of personal essays floating around in my brain, maybe a paragraph or two scribbled in my journal or even tentatively shared with my husband. But since I could rarely think of the perfect punchline, and figured nothing was New York Times Sunday Magazine quality, I didn't even attempt to make my personal writings public. These daily blog posts help me to force my way through my insecurities about my writing. With my busy life, I don't have time to make sure each word is "perfect" before I catapault my latest post into cyberspace. Some are just so-so, some I'm proud of, and a couple might be able to grow into something really good. But only if I give myself permission to try.



23. It's a great feeling to want to rush home at the end of the day knowing I'll have the biggest smile in the world waiting on the other side of the door.

Surfacing

This morning when I was heading to work along Highway 63, several cement whooziwhatzits dropped off the back of a truck and I drove over one of them, shredding my right front tire.

While I waited for the guy to come change my tire (thank God for Better World Club, our AAA alternative), I had an hour or so to kill. Luckily I wasn't injured in my little accident and the only damage to my car was the ruined tire. But it scared me enough to get my mind going, to remind me how easy it is to get thrown off track, how precious each day is when we're not guaranteed a tomorrow.

Several years ago I read the book Conscious Loving by Gay Hendricks, and one idea really stuck with me. Hendricks says there are certain lessons we each need to learn, that the universe is determined to teach us one way or another. (I promise not to throw the word "universe" aroud this venue too much...) He says it's up to us whether we choose to be conscious in our lives and pay attention to the gentle lessons that come our way, or whether the universe is forced to teach us lessons the hard way. I don't remember if the book uses this particular word, but I think of the hard route to life's lessons as the "sledgehammer approach". I've had to learn one or two lessons that way, so ever since reading that book I try to be conscious enough in my life that my lessons will come to me in a fairly gentle manner.

Maybe it's not quite accurate to think of slamming my poor little Honda into a block of cement as a "gentle" lesson, but it sure could have been worse.

While I was waiting for my tire-changing angel to arrive this morning, I started thinking that maybe this little accident would serve as my gentle reminder to get back to something that's important to me, but that I've been avoiding for a while — writing. I do a smidge of writing for my job managing web content; I've done some freelance magazine writing; and I wrote in a journal almost every day from the ages of 10 to 34.

When I was 34, I met my sweetie, Glen, and in short order I moved to be with him in Fairfield, we got hitched and had a baby, and now we're living this sweet, happy, comfy-cozy family life. I've journaled less since I've had a family because: 1) I guess I tend to journal more when I'm depressed or mad, feelings I haven't had a lot of need for in recent years. 2) Being mom to a toddler keeps me busy! 3) How can I get up early to write when I have a warm hubby I could snuggle with instead? 4) How can I sit at the computer after Jack's in bed when Glen has The Office on the DVR and a spiked mug of hot chocolate ready to go?

But I do miss writing for myself. I've wanted to do some writing that's more personal than corporate web content or magazine journalism, but more structured than scribbling in a journal. I've rarely written anything personal in a public forum, and I'm slightly apprehensive about it, but I'm going to give it a shot. I think it will be good for me, and maybe there's something from my personal experience that readers can appreciate.