Today I am grateful for witnessing my son’s milestones.  He graduated from kindergarten this week (no ceremony), and I go into more detail about this tomorrow, but I am so grateful that I have been able to see these moments in my son’s life.  It is so important to me and I know how the presence of myself and my husband matter to my son.  It is such a cool thing, a privilege to be with him and see how happy he is, how proud he is of his accomplishments.  I love being with my family and I know that needs to be a priority in my life.  That is where I’m at now and that is what matters to me.  My goal is to be there as much as possible and to not have to ask permission to be present in my son’s life.

Today I am grateful for friendship.  I still see how I am lacking connection in a lot of ways.  It amazes me how we find ourselves alone even when we reach out to people (I also talk more about this later this week).  My son has a best friend and through him, my husband and I have made friends with his friend’s parents.  I was able to spend some time with his mother today and I found myself thoroughly enjoying it, being in the moment, feeling supported and offering support, laughing together and recognizing where we are similar.  That we have a common ground.  I don’t prioritize my relationships as well as I should only because of how my time gets divided, but I don’t want that to be the case any longer.  Spending that time together today was liberating and necessary. 

Today I am grateful for home.  I’m going through a lot of changes and working on establishing who I am and what I need and even what I want to do in this new life.  There are a lot of things that feel like home. I have my physical house, I have my family, I have the people who I consider family.  That is truly a blessed thing.  Between anxiety and depression and ADHD, it feels like my world spins out of control and all too quickly sometimes so I struggle to find the anchors that hold me in place long enough to gather my bearings.  Then there are times it feels if I let go of the anchor, even if I’m drowning, I will spin out of control.  I’m working on finding that balance because I still consider myself lucky to have those things.  I see that home is also a place inside of us.  A grounding point.  That is our foundation.  I’ve become too many things at once with too many irons in the fire so the foundation feels choppy, but I am so grateful to have the things that bring me back to center.  I am grateful for the people, especially the friends I consider family who let me spin out and are always willing to bring me back.  They know me.  I couldn’t do it without them.

Today I am grateful for cleaning.  We have a new allergen in our house and we haven’t identified it yet.  It has been a miserable two weeks between coughing, itchy/red/burning/oozy eyes, and inflamed sinuses.  Today we are focusing on tackling this house together and scrubbing it from top to bottom trying to kill whatever we came into contact with.  I know it’s a simple thing, but I am so grateful to have the ability to go after whatever we are harboring in this house.  Plus I truly enjoy having some sense of organization.  If I don’t know where stuff is, I frustrate really easily and tend to spin out into thinking it’s the end of the world and my brain doesn’t work right.  Having things where I need them to be makes all the difference.  Having it clean on top of organized is the cherry on top.

Today I am grateful for prayer and belief.  We received news about a diagnosis for my sister this week.  No one likes to hear that they are ill, that they have a disease.  Especially someone who has put in major effort to take care of themselves their whole lives.  Her diagnosis is the best of the worst case so I am putting faith in the fact that she has taken care of herself so well for so long that once this is taken care of, all will be well.  I know that combined we are all praying and know she will be ok, this is just a hiccup.  We are keeping the energy up for her sake and supporting her as much as we can.  Life is the greatest gift we have and working together, connecting through prayer and belief, can be such a powerful thing to illuminate life.  All is well. 

Today I am grateful for self-love.  I’m not 100% sure why this past week was so rough emotionally and focus-wise.  Nothing made sense, I had to explain myself a thousand times (for things I’ve already explained), I’m reconciling health and wellness for myself, for my sister, for my family, my son is growing so fast, I’m trying to break patterns with my husband and myself, I’m trying to be fully who I am and lean toward what works for me/brings me joy, I’m trying to be a good friend to everyone.  I went out of control emotionally, and reading that list back, I see why.  I’m not a patient person even with new medication (that is truly helping), and I’m trying to cut every tie that feels like it’s holding me back at once and I’m trying to cling on to a million things that I still want to do.  So moving into this next week, I’m going to try and practice more self-love and patience for myself so I recognize the outcome I want in any situation, more awareness of the moment, more clarity in my decisions, more confidence in stating those decisions and standing in my choices, and less worry about how what I need is received.  I will honor my needs and it doesn’t matter if that is convenient for someone else.  I have to believe all of this craziness will work out somehow.  I will find my center and that will change everything. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.