As a brief note to the beginning of this year's gratitude project, I must say I am grateful for the project in and of itself. The additional challenge of actually spending time feeling into the gratitude, of contemplating it and sitting with it, was exactly the push I needed to actually start writing. After all, I've only said I was going to do it for the last five years or so. But anyway, here we are, day one of intentional gratitude, and day one of purposeful writing.
Today's gratitude hit me like a ton of bricks almost immediately upon waking, as I caught myself singing for the first time in what felt like a long time. Today, I am grateful for the web of life, and the strands that connect us to one another, as well as those that just build our lives in general. Sound ominous? I know, right. More like vague AF. But no, seriously, I'm going somewhere with this.
I'm a firm believer in life having seasons, or chapters. People, careers, passions, and other things that served us at one point in life may not continue to do so through every chapter. Everything has a season, a fact I've had to accept...over and over again. It's okay to walk away from jobs we once thought would be the career of our lifetime, or a relationship that we knew was THE one (sincerest apologies to my mother for how many times she had to sit through me prattling on about THE one...only to have moved on to a new the one faster than you can blink an eye). Spiritual beliefs that were once the core of our being may one day feel outgrown, one of the most painful seasons to shift through, I've found.
However, despite the shifts, the changes, the seasons...our web continues to weave itself, and as has been proven time and time again, sometimes the strands are solid enough that, though it feels to have been an ended chapter, it's actually somewhat of a lifeline that can, in fact, be revisited. That passion you (tearfully) let go of because it no longer seemed to fit, suddenly reinvigorates your soul. That friend you thought was gone, the person your life just didn't feel quite right without, suddenly tugs the telephone wire of that web string, reminding you that not all goodbyes are goodbyes, some are just...see you laters.
But for the chapters that have actually closed, I'm grateful for the lessons and the memories that they leave in their wake, still contributing to the growth and expansion of the web. I'm grateful for the pangs of having to release, to surrender control and accept that which I cannot change. I am grateful for the warmth of recalling their memory. I am grateful for every inch of growth they have assisted with.
And as for those lines that didn't actually close as forcefully as I thought they did...I'm grateful for those, too.
Happy day one, my friends. Go weave the web.
- Dommie
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