Thankful.Grateful.Blessed

Thankful.grateful.blessed

Here we are, a month later and no updated blog. I suck, admittedly. But thank you for sticking it out with me. This time of year is ALWAYS just straight-up hectic, and even the spare minutes I do have are just as chaotic as the busy ones, so getting to sit down and write is a rarity. The holidays are picking up, and with Thanksgiving behind us, Christmas is in FULL swing. Shopping has commenced, we’ve got plans to take a trip to our favorite farm to pick out our tree, and take some family pictures. We vowed to start shopping earlier this year, and we’ve actually stuck to it with the majority of our shopping done already. I did quite a bit of my shopping on Black Friday, and “cyber weekend” taking advantage of the holiday deals and while I’m stuck toggling between “savings mode” and “add to cart, YOLO” I also have to remind myself what this time of year is truly about.

I came across a memory today while I was on Facebook that focused on the stressors in life, but the sheer fact that you have those stressors means that you could be grateful for them, as they mean something else is in your life enriching it and it struck me.

It is so terribly easy to be consumed by the stresses of the holidays and the pressures that piggy back on them like making sure the tree is trimmed perfectly and the ornaments are arranged in stress-inducing symmetry, that your presents are both thoughtful, funny, but also useful, and that you make sure to move that stinkin’ elf before your kids wake up, and don’t even mention preparing and cooking dishes to bring to family or corporate events and figuring out which wine pairs best with your cheese dip and crackers! And all that is really just the tip of the iceberg… we live in a social-media fueled society, where you live up to fabricated expectations, all for that perfect IG post, and that does NO justice to what ACTUAL life is like out here, in the real world.

I’m not sure about you, but I life in a cluttered, chaotic, loud house, with crumbs on the floor, a less than sparkling commode, piles of dishes in the sink constantly, piles of laundry everywhere (including piles of half dirty laundry that normally take residence in “the chair”), and lots of “Mommy, come here.” And “But what does THAT say?” All of which are reminders that we have food to eat, running water, a full refrigerator and thriving little minds in our care.

These, THESE things are what make you stressed to the max on top of the holiday stress, like stressed to the point that you’re not sure whether you need a bottle of wine, a Xanax or a J, but you need SOMETHING! But, these things are often what so many people crave, what they DREAM of, and what they spend their days working for. There are SO many reasons to be thankful, and what’s become our stress and annoyance, is some one else’s dream. Someone out there longs for clean, running water, someone is working 60+ hours a week to be able to afford the internet in their home, someone else is checking in at fertility clinics daily, even weekly and undergoing testing in order to start a family of their own, so they too can one day answer the question “why is the sky blue?”

Being thankful is no doubt an ambiguous notion, and we all have different ideals of what bring us joy, and what we constitute as something to be grateful for, but with that being said, we all have different struggles and different lives that bring stress, loathing, exhaustion, but also joy, happiness and a sense of peacefulness. So, with that, please don’ t forget there are truly SO many reasons to be thankful, and the takeaway from this rambling can be “someone else out there is dying to have the same stress you do,” so please, take a step away from the gift wrapping, from the tiny tot who just won’t let you get more than two words in, lock yourself in the bathroom at the company party, and just breathe, and remember PERSPECTIVE is huge… and there are SO many reasons to be #THANKFULGRATEFULBLESSED

photo credit linked below