this is the part where you say thank you.

ah, the end of the year.

where one muses on what has and what is yet to come.

the ghost snippets of the year past rattling around trying to come up with something to say.

this year: sucked.

2011: sucked.

so did 2010: sucked.

i had higher hopes and they were dashed.

i know i know i live where it's sunny and sweet. i have wonderful kids and a wonderful relationship. i am rich in friends and family. i mean MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME ALREADY.

this year i was pushed and pushed and stretched and the stitching just didn't hold. it held for so long but it just got too stretched. life is like that sometimes. the stitching holds until it just doesn't.

i will try to make this brief.

so i wrote of losing my faith but not of finding it again. but i did find it again. that happened. it did. so that's good.

but the year still sucked? you ask.

oh yes. it still did. but let's move along.

and really all it took finding my faith again was literally stopping the in the middle of my daily 'i hate the world i am miserable' walk up a steep hill i was unfamiliar with and remembering OH YEAH. you forgot to see the light coming through the cracks. like a ton of bricks it started hitting me. you forgot your tools! you forgot when times get tough you get a mantra! and you repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until something better comes along! you jackass! you are miserable and flailing and you forgot everything!

so i'm stopped. on my walk. up that hill. wondering why it was that just now i was remembering. that i forgot. and thinking about tools and a mantra. and thinking about a friend on a certain social networking site who was posting his own mantra every day. something outside of his usual posting character. but he posted it. without fail. and that came to me. so i started there. peace and love. peace and love. that's what he posted. and since i had been so stuck and had forgotten so deeply i started there. you can always start right where you are. you are never so lost that you can't. peace and love. and i kept saying that under my breath out loud. peace and love.

and then i looked up, and fuck it all i wasn't smack dab in front of the catholic church in town. and then i looked down and i saw a lucky penny i hadn't seen before. i am not even kidding you.

look, i'm not one to begrudge a kick in the ass from anywhere. maybe it was god or my dad or just a wild coincidence. just the street i took in my daily 'i hate the world i am miserable' walk and a penny someone dropped and i didn't see until that moment. maybe.

i believe in all those things so i looked up into the sky and then grabbed up the penny and kept walking.

so i did peace and love. for a few blocks (this ended up being a particularly long walk. therapy takes time. sometimes longer than you think it will or should. i just kept walking.) and then i added gratitude. and then i locked on gratitude. oh my god WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME ALREADY. how fucking rich am i with these kids and this life. i have been pushed and my faith taken. i have been stretched and never ever dreamed things would GET WORSE than they had been. but no matter what  happens or happened i have so much i can be grateful for. 

so i said i am grateful i am grateful i am grateful. and i listed each thing i was grateful for. everything. all the things to be grateful for in my miserable existence.

and then i was walking down the hill. (there are a lot of hills here. i always seem to be walking UP.) and enjoying the feeling of fuller breaths and a bit of a breeze. i am grateful i am grateful i am grateful.

i just want to feel healed. i don't want to be wounded. i don't even care about being pushed and the stitching loosening. it will hold. i'm sure. okay i'm not entirely sure but for the first time in a long time i felt reasonably sure the stitching might hold. i just don't want to feel wounded. i want to be healed.

and i was thinking these things and walking down the hill and i walked by the weird crystal 'energy' shop. i say weird not because i don't get it but this place is weird. and in the window they had a big amethyst. amethyst. such a powerful healing stone. one of my absolute favorites. right there in front of me. healing. incidentally it also guards against drunkenness. so. there's that, too.

what are the odds? the big fat sparkly healing stone.

we have the religious reference and the father watching over me reference and now the spiritual reference. all pretty good for one what started out as the daily 'i hate the world i am miserable' walk.

and when i got home i grabbed my amethyst off the front porch and put it where i would see it. i tossed the lucky penny on the pile in front of the picture by my father. i felt better. i felt more like myself. amazing what happens when we stop clenching it all to us. all the crap. all the wounds and the misery and we let it go and take a good deep breath. find gratitude in the going up and the coming down. just find gratitude. period.

i forgot. forgot all the tools i ever learned. how quickly that happens.

and then i was talking on the phone with a dear friend who knows i am dealing with something but since i'm trying to cowboy my way out of this thing i'm not talking. so she talks. and she says

hey. i know you are dealing with something and i know you don't want to talk about it but i want you to know that i am here. for whenever you do. i am here for you and i will listen.

she is not the only friend to say this. i have the best friends on the planet. they have all said this at some point in our years as friends. and i have said it too. it gets said. but i always reply with the same old shit. the same pat speech.

because i'm used to saving my own life. and this time i almost well kinda nearly tried to give her that same pat speech. about this and that and how i'm really okay. blah blah blah. i'm about to but then i heard a voice in my head. as clear as can be

this is the part where you say thank you.

and then again. a little louder. because in cases like this voices seem to have to repeat themselves

this is the part where you say thank you.

and so, i shut up. and didn't really say all those things i normally do. and i said

thank you. i really appreciate that.

thank you.

it's okay to save your own life. it's okay to hold on to your wounded self. until you can let it go it's okay to hold on to it. i mean we all are a work in progress. you don't have to get the whole lesson in the first few decades. and it's okay to have shitty year after shitty year. i mean not 'okay' but it happens and it's okay that it's not all OKAY all the time. being imperfect is okay. but it's not okay to forget. it's not okay to forget the tools you have. however small. it's not okay to forget to be grateful. even with all that that is not okay and that whole mess of being a work in progress THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU SAY THANK YOU.

thank you because you are here. in this life.

no matter what it is. no matter how hard or fucked up.

this is the part where you say thank you.

even if you are angry.

and hey, you have every right to be angry about whatever it is you are angry about. EVERY RIGHT. i am the most justified angry person around.

but it's not okay to forget. to be grateful. 

this is the part where you say thank you.

for something. for anything. or just to say it.

this is part where you say thank you.

because you are here.

and because you can.

start there.


x.