This season has been hard. My romantic partner died by suicide 6 weeks ago. Gratitude has been a daily choice and the practice that is helping me want to live again. This journey has hurt so fucking much and I am grateful for a time, we got to choose love with each other. It was beautiful. I am so grateful I know that kind of love is possible and that I am capable of being a co-creator in it. I am grateful each day to get to practice this love with myself and the those I interact with. Thank you, Andrea, for the work you put out into this world. My late partner was the reason I found your work. Your work meant a lot to them. I will risk love today.
I am grateful for this fuckin' brilliant line that made me smile out loud - "In a culture that pushes us to focus not on what we can give, but on what we can take, what we tend to take is everything for granted." So good, you're fantastic.
Cloud Cult has a line that says “it’s easy to be thankful for the things you’ve got; it takes guts to give thanks for the things that you’ve lost.” And I think about this all the time. I’m grateful for the negative space, the chiaroscuro, the voids to scream into.
Grateful to you for putting this feeling into words.
I lost my wife of 38 years to cancer 2 years ago. I have focused on the blessing of being with her for those 38 years rather than her loss. Her fight strengthened me. It made me realize what is really important in life. It allowed me to appreciate the little things we take for granted every day. It made me take notice of all the little things in my life that were forever changed for the better because of her.
I'm grateful for you/ this space, for poetry and how writing it has liberated me, for mint - the color and the plant, for words like "mint", for queerness, for transness, for the human depth that is possible, and for vipassana mediation, where I'm headed soon, and the fear and possibility I feel about meditating for 12 days.
I am grateful that the silver lining of the pandemic is that my work has moved almost totally online, allowing me to be fully present with my 21 year old cat during his palliative cancer care and my 9 year old dog who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. They need all the care and attention I can give and I am very lucky and very grateful to be working with my feet on the dog as I spoon feed her nutrition rich pâté between emails.
I spent over a year on chemo and couldn't eat fibrous foods in that time. Now I can again, the other night at a work dinner I piled my plate high with broccoli (never used to be a big fan of veges) and it tasted so good and I was just so happy and thankful to be able to eat it again!!!
I drink in your words like someone whose been in the desert for weeks. I love your perspective and it resonates so deeply with what I’ve been pondering too lately. You’re a kindred soul! Thank you. I’m grateful that you’re so prolific in getting your insights and poetry out into the world.
I've been diagnosed with a very rare illness that makes it impossible for me to use weed to help my CPTSD anymore. I'm finding gratitude in remembering my mind is not a prison, that I can get through this and my inner child has had a chance to speak up more. I'm physically so sick right now but mentally I'm learning so much 💗
I’m grateful for the kindness and tenderness of the queer community. I’m grateful to have found a home inside myself and with the company of queer folks. I’m overflowing with gratitude for the safety and comfort my queer family has provided me. For being seen and held by them in a way that helps the multitudes inside my heart feel SO spacious - as though they deserve room to breathe, stretch, and expand rather than be soaked in shame.
I’m particularly grateful for the resilience and power that this community has cultivated inside ourselves and each other more particularly, our trans family, as the grief of all seasons of existing in a world that isn’t for us but is made more expansive by us seems to be limitless. I’m eternally grateful for healing and the illuminations and connections that healing provides.
I am grateful for relationship with my ex-husband who came out as gay after almost 20years together. It was hardest time in my life, but now we are better versions of ourselves and we are each others support. I missed him a lot, happy we figure out how to be part of each others life again. I am grateful for the Love I have with my son, as he is growing up and my mother role is changing - his energy is infectious, his opinions always on point, sometimes out of my comfort, still in Love. I am grateful for the time I have been given in this life, it feels like a brief moment and it is 40 years so far. I hope for many more to come. I am grateful for this space - I never think I will found this and that it even exists. Thank you Andrea for creating this space and for sharing your feelings - I never knew I needed this. Love you.
I so related to this line “ When I’m grieving, I focus on the love that made the grief possible. ” I lost my best friend, my parent partner to ALS in March. I am so grateful to have known him, loved him and spent this last year caring for him, it was an honor.
I'm grateful for these reminders Andrea! Thank you. Controlling where our attention goes is such an art and requires awareness, skill, and focus.... otherwise it is an easy "downhill" to fear. I wonder what some of your practices are; ones that help you control where your attention goes? With gratitude... especially for the special human being who pointed me in your direction :-)
I am grateful for you, for this list, for the post you put up about Colorado, for the reminder to pull my family close when I see them next, to queer the next space I can, to kiss the cheeks and the lips and the prayer beads and to be grateful for this heart which is breaking because it's a sign that it's beating.
I am grateful for the life I get to live here now today. the shit and the shine. thank you. THANK YOU.
My dad, who I have had a challenging relationship with, just passed away suddenly. We've reconnected more in recent years than ever, but the arguments were still there. I've told myself a story that we never really connected when I was a kid, that my mom has always been my champion, and the shitty things my dad has said to me are what he really thinks about me. The youngest of four, I was in charge of putting together the slideshow for his memorial last week, so I spent the week preceding it going through every photo album in my parents' house and taking a picture of the photos of him. There are so. many. photos of him with me as a child - jumping in the waves at the shore, horseback riding, being silly, all the things. He was a joyful presence in my life for much longer than our conflicts, but it was hard to see. My estranged brother and I reconnected after the funeral, and I realize that he is hurting in lots of ways, and has lashed out at me, but none of that is *about* me. If my dad hadn't died, I don't know when I would have seen him again. Thank you for this post.
Thank you for this. Putting words to something I discovered a few years ago in my own journey. I was a husband, father, catechist, successful businessman living in a great neighborhood in a great house. I was also, in secret, an addict. 5 years ago this December all that was hidden became know. I was arrested, lost my job, (gratefully, I didn't lose my marriage) and lost nearly everything I had between attorney fees, bail and court costs - and not working.
12 steps told me to be grateful. Sponsors told me to be grateful. I found little to be grateful for. Then I changed. I was grateful for my factory job. I was grateful that 90% of my co-workers were felons and accepted me into this new culture. I was grateful for my probation officer and even being on probation. and my life changed. I have shared with others in recovery with me that gratitude saved my life, but its not a feeling - it's an attitude, it's a practice. Five years later, I'm still on probation and I'll aways be a felon, but I've have a good job again and am rebuilding (by the way, I'm in my 60's so I was an old dude when all this started). When things are tough and I do a self examination, I realize I chose to be ungrateful again. I was raised with resentment and I was addicted to resentment and I believe resentment was key in me blowing up my life. I'm not perfect, but today I choose to be grateful. Today, I choose to let my resentments go. Thank you!
This season has been hard. My romantic partner died by suicide 6 weeks ago. Gratitude has been a daily choice and the practice that is helping me want to live again. This journey has hurt so fucking much and I am grateful for a time, we got to choose love with each other. It was beautiful. I am so grateful I know that kind of love is possible and that I am capable of being a co-creator in it. I am grateful each day to get to practice this love with myself and the those I interact with. Thank you, Andrea, for the work you put out into this world. My late partner was the reason I found your work. Your work meant a lot to them. I will risk love today.
I am grateful for this fuckin' brilliant line that made me smile out loud - "In a culture that pushes us to focus not on what we can give, but on what we can take, what we tend to take is everything for granted." So good, you're fantastic.
Cloud Cult has a line that says “it’s easy to be thankful for the things you’ve got; it takes guts to give thanks for the things that you’ve lost.” And I think about this all the time. I’m grateful for the negative space, the chiaroscuro, the voids to scream into.
Grateful to you for putting this feeling into words.
I lost my wife of 38 years to cancer 2 years ago. I have focused on the blessing of being with her for those 38 years rather than her loss. Her fight strengthened me. It made me realize what is really important in life. It allowed me to appreciate the little things we take for granted every day. It made me take notice of all the little things in my life that were forever changed for the better because of her.
I'm grateful for you/ this space, for poetry and how writing it has liberated me, for mint - the color and the plant, for words like "mint", for queerness, for transness, for the human depth that is possible, and for vipassana mediation, where I'm headed soon, and the fear and possibility I feel about meditating for 12 days.
I am grateful that the silver lining of the pandemic is that my work has moved almost totally online, allowing me to be fully present with my 21 year old cat during his palliative cancer care and my 9 year old dog who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. They need all the care and attention I can give and I am very lucky and very grateful to be working with my feet on the dog as I spoon feed her nutrition rich pâté between emails.
I spent over a year on chemo and couldn't eat fibrous foods in that time. Now I can again, the other night at a work dinner I piled my plate high with broccoli (never used to be a big fan of veges) and it tasted so good and I was just so happy and thankful to be able to eat it again!!!
I drink in your words like someone whose been in the desert for weeks. I love your perspective and it resonates so deeply with what I’ve been pondering too lately. You’re a kindred soul! Thank you. I’m grateful that you’re so prolific in getting your insights and poetry out into the world.
I've been diagnosed with a very rare illness that makes it impossible for me to use weed to help my CPTSD anymore. I'm finding gratitude in remembering my mind is not a prison, that I can get through this and my inner child has had a chance to speak up more. I'm physically so sick right now but mentally I'm learning so much 💗
I’m grateful for the kindness and tenderness of the queer community. I’m grateful to have found a home inside myself and with the company of queer folks. I’m overflowing with gratitude for the safety and comfort my queer family has provided me. For being seen and held by them in a way that helps the multitudes inside my heart feel SO spacious - as though they deserve room to breathe, stretch, and expand rather than be soaked in shame.
I’m particularly grateful for the resilience and power that this community has cultivated inside ourselves and each other more particularly, our trans family, as the grief of all seasons of existing in a world that isn’t for us but is made more expansive by us seems to be limitless. I’m eternally grateful for healing and the illuminations and connections that healing provides.
I am grateful for relationship with my ex-husband who came out as gay after almost 20years together. It was hardest time in my life, but now we are better versions of ourselves and we are each others support. I missed him a lot, happy we figure out how to be part of each others life again. I am grateful for the Love I have with my son, as he is growing up and my mother role is changing - his energy is infectious, his opinions always on point, sometimes out of my comfort, still in Love. I am grateful for the time I have been given in this life, it feels like a brief moment and it is 40 years so far. I hope for many more to come. I am grateful for this space - I never think I will found this and that it even exists. Thank you Andrea for creating this space and for sharing your feelings - I never knew I needed this. Love you.
I so related to this line “ When I’m grieving, I focus on the love that made the grief possible. ” I lost my best friend, my parent partner to ALS in March. I am so grateful to have known him, loved him and spent this last year caring for him, it was an honor.
I'm grateful for these reminders Andrea! Thank you. Controlling where our attention goes is such an art and requires awareness, skill, and focus.... otherwise it is an easy "downhill" to fear. I wonder what some of your practices are; ones that help you control where your attention goes? With gratitude... especially for the special human being who pointed me in your direction :-)
I am grateful for you, for this list, for the post you put up about Colorado, for the reminder to pull my family close when I see them next, to queer the next space I can, to kiss the cheeks and the lips and the prayer beads and to be grateful for this heart which is breaking because it's a sign that it's beating.
I am grateful for the life I get to live here now today. the shit and the shine. thank you. THANK YOU.
I love you.
My dad, who I have had a challenging relationship with, just passed away suddenly. We've reconnected more in recent years than ever, but the arguments were still there. I've told myself a story that we never really connected when I was a kid, that my mom has always been my champion, and the shitty things my dad has said to me are what he really thinks about me. The youngest of four, I was in charge of putting together the slideshow for his memorial last week, so I spent the week preceding it going through every photo album in my parents' house and taking a picture of the photos of him. There are so. many. photos of him with me as a child - jumping in the waves at the shore, horseback riding, being silly, all the things. He was a joyful presence in my life for much longer than our conflicts, but it was hard to see. My estranged brother and I reconnected after the funeral, and I realize that he is hurting in lots of ways, and has lashed out at me, but none of that is *about* me. If my dad hadn't died, I don't know when I would have seen him again. Thank you for this post.
Thank you for this. Putting words to something I discovered a few years ago in my own journey. I was a husband, father, catechist, successful businessman living in a great neighborhood in a great house. I was also, in secret, an addict. 5 years ago this December all that was hidden became know. I was arrested, lost my job, (gratefully, I didn't lose my marriage) and lost nearly everything I had between attorney fees, bail and court costs - and not working.
12 steps told me to be grateful. Sponsors told me to be grateful. I found little to be grateful for. Then I changed. I was grateful for my factory job. I was grateful that 90% of my co-workers were felons and accepted me into this new culture. I was grateful for my probation officer and even being on probation. and my life changed. I have shared with others in recovery with me that gratitude saved my life, but its not a feeling - it's an attitude, it's a practice. Five years later, I'm still on probation and I'll aways be a felon, but I've have a good job again and am rebuilding (by the way, I'm in my 60's so I was an old dude when all this started). When things are tough and I do a self examination, I realize I chose to be ungrateful again. I was raised with resentment and I was addicted to resentment and I believe resentment was key in me blowing up my life. I'm not perfect, but today I choose to be grateful. Today, I choose to let my resentments go. Thank you!