Sure, we focus on 2020 and how awful it has been, but yesterday, I was able to have a moment to remember what I’m grateful for. So let gratitude be your attitude and let’s name them.
I still have my job.
To be fair, I wasn’t terribly worried, since my job tends to be recession-resistant, but budgets can shift overnight and projects that you’re working on are no longer funded. So I’m grateful that I still have a job and we’re still putting food on the table.
We still have our health.
Apart from one nasty head cold, my family has avoided the doctor pretty well this year. My wife has tested negative for the swine ebola monkey pox flying death.
I still have most of my relatives.
Sure, I lost my grandmother, but she was 91, and I had my chance to say goodbye and return to my hometown again. Otherwise, my brother-in-law’s father passed away, which caused a family hubbub over that meant I couldn’t go to their house for Thanksgiving, but I got to see my other brother-in-law (Editor Ed), and for that, I’m far more grateful.
My bar is still open.
Now this may seem fickle to you, but this is not a certainty these days. Having shutdowns crippled many restaurants, and especially bars, and bars often didn’t have the “carryout” option that restaurants did. So many of them closed for good. Bar Lives Matter–because we are running out of spaces for casual interaction with people. If you don’t go to church, and you don’t belong to an organization that actually meets, you’re limited to social media… and boy, what a fun-house mirror that is.
Simply talking to people who do not believe the same as you, were not raised the same way, and do not have the same life experiences makes your world a lot richer. Plus with a couple drinks in you, you’re able to be honest with each other, and realize what separates us is not that important.
My son’s finally doing better in school.
This whole online school thing is terrible–my son went from being an honor roll student to flunking half his classes. It took a lot of work, but we finally got him back up to acceptable. Now I could give some choice words about his principal and what I think she should do with her bad self, but in the end, we didn’t leave and go to a school that was meeting in person because this is the school my son feels at home with. (But Lord, we came close.)
His school lets him go to campus twice a week–classes are still online, but at least, he’s going somewhere different and connecting with his friends. This has hit him the worst out of all of us. My daughter only had a month break from her school and they were back in person, but my son hasn’t been in a regular classroom since March. Plays–what he lives for–aren’t happening. D&D games are over and he hates doing MORE stuff online. And half his friends are still deathly afraid of human interaction. So the fact that he’s passing all his classes now is a God-send.
What are you grateful for? Don’t focus on the negative for one day a year and feel free to comment what is best in your life. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Albigensia Press 