Today I am grateful for understanding what it means when one door closes and another opens.  I am also grateful for understanding that doors open and close in all facets of our lives whether it is in career, friendships, relationships, ideas, ventures, hopes, dreams, fears, anything really.  We have to come to terms with the fact that there are certain things in life that just ARE.  It can be challenging to discern the meaning behind things when at times, frankly, there isn’t any.  At other times, we have to accept that when things aren’t working, they aren’t working for a reason.  Things we believed in entirely, relationships we thought were solid, understanding we thought we agreed on. Sometimes they fall apart not because of what we did or didn’t do, but because they weren’t quite what they were supposed to be in the grand scheme of things regardless. If someone was willing to close a door in our faces, then we can be grateful for understanding their true colors when they showed us. It isn’t up to us to make people feel any way about us.  We have these relationships and each relationship serves a purpose.  Allow it to be, allow the events to pass, allow everything to be as it is.  Sure, it stings when something goes to the wayside, but it hurts more staying where it isn’t working in the first place.

Today I am grateful for faith in myself.  Life threw a few curveballs at me these past few weeks.  Truthfully, nothing I couldn’t handle, not even really anything that wasn’t expected or known, either—things that I hoped weren’t how I thought? Yes.  We always hope something can swing the other way and even if we are aware of all possibilities, it can still catch us a bit off guard if it goes off course.  So.  The real lesson was about finding my own wings and remembering that even if things fell apart I could still fly.  In the midst of big change, things always seem overwhelming.  When we are dealing with multiple big changes at once, it can feel completely disorienting.  Truth be told it is disorienting because we lose all the familiar ground we had when we venture into something new.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing because we will eventually gain our footing no matter where we land.  But the real point in it is that even if we don’t have our footing, we certainly have the ability to carry ourselves to the next stable ground where we will find our footing.  I didn’t think I would be able to initiate all of these changes at once—all the wonderful things I’ve been working on building in my life all coming to a head at nearly the same time.  But this is a gift.  I am here on the precipice of all the amazing things I want to accomplish and experience and shedding the last bit of weight from things that no longer fit or serve may be a bit painful, but I will rise above that too.

Today I am grateful for completion.  I have about 150 open projects in my life right now between work, home, my son’s commitments/sports, my personal ventures, gatherings, etc.  There’s a lot going on like any other person.  Nothing is ever really completed because there is always something else next on the list or something else we find in the process.  I’ve vacillated between acceptance that change means destruction and chaos and then the absolute need to have it done, to understanding that certain things take longer than we thought, and then getting angry and then finding mild acceptance again for the last several months.  The last year taught me repeatedly about waiting—and those lessons in learning patience failed miserably to be totally honest.  But I did learn that there are things that sit in limbo and they will sit there as long as they need to.  Sometimes life just moves on its own schedule.  So all of the things we have going on now feel overwhelming because it is a huge multitude of things that need to be addressed at once.  But we are so fortunate that we have the means and the ability to do it all as we need to.  We are still able to be comfortable even as the checklist of things we find to do grows.  And all we can do is continue to complete one thing at a time and as it goes on, everything will get done.  The list never ends—we will always have something to do.  When we don’t we are at the end, and I can tell you, I’m not at the end yet.

Today I am grateful for transition.  The waiting, the in between is enough to drive anyone nuts.  But I am grateful for the transition period because this is the precipice of all that I wanted.  It’s uncomfortable with all the loose ends but those loose ends mean that I am able to discern between what needs to be done and what we can let go.  Loose ends mean that there are/were possibilities and we were given the opportunity to choose what works for us.  Transition means we have choice and that is a gift.  I will take the ability to choose any day.  I will take the ability to go through the chaos to make things better for myself, my family, and others any time.  Sometimes we have to trust that we will find out what we need to know when we need to know it. There’s no real way to prepare for everything anyway—we aren’t omniscient.  Sometimes we just have to trust that we will figure it out on the way.  So let the change happen.

Today I am grateful for support.  I’d be remiss if I denied that there was a level of support in everything I’ve done, even in the stuff that went to shit.  I have lived with a sort of naiveite for a  good portion of my life in that people wouldn’t outright try to hurt each other or that if we at least did the right thing by others they would do the right thing by us.  That 100% delayed my progression personally and professionally and that led to a lot of seeking permission and waiting.  It led me to waiting for people to tell me I could do things, waiting for their belief that I could do things.  And I allowed that to steer me wrong in many regards.  In the cases where I took the leap without waiting, when I took it based on my own volition and desire, things worked out for the best.  It’s often that way that we need to remind ourselves that we know what we are doing and that we can trust our instincts when we see how well things can go.  Even if it isn’t perfect, even if parts of it still fall apart, I’m seeing that it keeps me on the right track as long as I follow what I am being told to do.  There are people who have helped me and I’ve always made sure to tell them how grateful I am—and I am.  But I am finding I’m grateful even to those who tried to hold me back, to those who made me doubt myself.  Sure, I faced a lot of delay because of that, but I also learned to surpass my own expectations and do what I needed to do.  I learned to find my way in spite of that.  So in its own way, that too was support.  And here I am about to begin the next great adventure of my life.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.