Today I am grateful for my voice.  I’ve had to make some tough decisions over the last few days regarding relationships that at one time were truly solid.  Signs have been on the wall that these relationships were suffering and that things needed to change for a while—and I had done what I could to fix them.  I’d communicated clearly where my concerns were and what I wanted to do to move forward.  None of those things happened with any of the parties involved and frankly it escalated to a giant slap in the face that these people had no intention of ever changing their behaviors no matter what we explained or asked—no matter how rational.  Their intention was to do what they wanted and tell us to fuck off in the process if they weren’t getting what they wanted.  Adult friendships are hard enough because we are all well set in our patterns and beliefs and it can be harder to see where we may be at fault when some cracks start to form.  But I am no longer taking on the weight of someone else’s shitty behavior, I am not letting shitty behavior slide, and I do not need to bend to accommodate people who can’t see that what they are doing is wrong based on standards we learned in kindergarten.  So I’m speaking up for myself, my family, and what is right.     

Today I am grateful for self-respect.  I need to follow up gratitude for my voice with gratitude for having enough respect for myself to use my voice.  I’ve so often played the peace-keeper, trying to find both sides of the situation so we can reach an agreement, that I often allowed what I was really feeling or thinking to take a back seat.  I tried over and over again to tell people what I was feeling in the hopes that the behavior would stop or we could reach a compromise or with the hope I would at least get an explanation.  When that didn’t happen it was evident that we did not hold each other in the same regard or with the same respect.  So this is a teaching moment and a learning opportunity for all of us involved: even if we are close to people, sometimes we have to worry more about being heard than we do about keeping the peace.  No one should ever feel bowled over in a relationship and when we voice our concerns and those matters aren’t addressed, then we need to be strong enough to walk away even if they are people we love.  I respect myself enough to know we are being fed crap and that the behavior will not change.  Sometimes doing the right thing hurts—but we do it anyway and I have no regrets. 

Today I am grateful for help.  I am grateful to receive help and I am grateful to give help.  Help isn’t a conditional thing, we all need help, sometimes in unexpected ways and times, and we need to give help.  Most importantly we need understand what a gift it is to be able to help.  As we get older, we will face mortality and fears and we have to accept that people and things we knew change—we all change.  We all become dependent on something and watch those who once held positions of power in our lives start to shift toward the point where they need help.  We are all human and time humbles us all.   

Today I am grateful for family, both blood and chosen.  I’ve come to realize how much we need that inherent support from people.  Not the kind of blind support that looks the other way, but the type of support that is there no matter what and still manages to shape us.  The family that understands who we are.  I grew up in a decently sized family that shrank down from a very large family, and now we are smaller still and I am so grateful to have the family I do, the people who have stuck with me, the people who understands the goal/point.  Life throws some nasty curve balls sometimes so it’s nice to know there are people who just get it—to laugh with, to cry with, to dig into the dirt with, and to create with—and those who support us when we go on to create something on our own.

Today I am grateful for adaptation.  I’m still going through some growing pains with the changes in my life but I am 100% leaning into the changes.  I truly couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given because these are literally things I’ve wanted and dreamt of for a while.  I’ve wanted to be able to call the shots in my life, I’ve wanted to live on my own schedule, I’ve wanted to maintain my health, my house, and my business while working, and I’ve wanted to start the transition to my life being supported by the things I love doing.  I understand the saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks because I’m working on that myself—the patterns we live are so deeply engrained that shifting that really can be difficult.  But I now respectfully disagree because I understand that old dogs can learn new tricks, it just sometimes takes a little longer.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead