Gratitude

I have been reminded over the past week how blessed I am and how I need to be more appreciative of the things I have in my life.  I like the line from Mary Poppins where she wisely tells the children that, "Enough is as good as a feast".  I have enough.  I have more than enough.  But still I lose sight of that.  Two things happened this week to help bring this back into focus for me that I will now share with you.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed for a new job.  There are some aspects of my current job I have not been happy with and they seem to have been more pronounced lately.  I went into this job three years ago telling myself I wouldn't like it and I have been telling myself for three years that I was right.  And yet, I love my boss and my coworkers.  I laugh every day I'm there.   make a (small) difference to some of the people there.  I have a decent reputation.  My opinions are sought and valued.  I have a good amount of flexibility and some freedom.  I'm paid well and I'm part time.  WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE?

But I've managed to convince myself that I'm not happy.  Sure, my job can be hard and is overwhelming from time to time.  But what job isn't?  I interviewed for this other job - outside of my current company - and received the offer a few days ago.  That's when things really got hard and overwhelming.  I really fretted over it.  I was stressed out and torn about making the right call.  I had two migraines in one week which is very rare for me, but that's how physically affected I was by the whole thing.

Without going into too much detail, it was a good opportunity.  But, at the end of the day, it was not a better opportunity  than what I have now.  I don't know why I've never viewed my current job as a good opportunity.  I haven't been grateful for it.  But I was reminded through this whole experience just what a good thing I have and how foolish it would have been to give it away.

One of the main motivators for me to decline the offer was that it meant a move to a full time work schedule.  Today, my youngest daughter Meg lives for Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She wakes up happy on those days because she knows she will be spending it with me.  The three days during the week that I go to work, she's very weepy and latches onto me begging me not to go.  Now I'm not saying that I have allowed a four year old to make this decision for me.  I am well aware that in two year's time she will have no choice but to go to school five days a week.  But I also hated the thought of having her and Kate in school and then after school care five days a week.  I know other parents can do it and do it well.  I do not believe  am one of those parents.  I'm barely organized enough in my life to be able to manage everything only working 24 hours a week.

At one point during this decision making process, I had decided I was going to accept the new position.  As soon as I have made that decision, I began to get very upset and uneasy.  I felt such guilt.  I thought it was just the guilt of forcing them into after school care five days a week.  But I also couldn't shake the feeling that I had been ungrateful to my current company in the past three years I had had this particular job.  I realized that much of the guilt I was feeling was a recognition that I had this great set-up and I was just about to throw it away.  So in this process, I had waffled quite a bit and had now made the decision to accept the new role.  The anxiety and uneasiness made me decide finally, ultimately to decline it.  As soon as I had made that decision, I immediately felt better physically.  A short while later that night, I was helping Meg into her jammies and she started crying, anticipating the next day which was a school day for her.  In between the tears she said, "I don't wanna go to school".  I knew then that I had made the right decision.  For her and for me.

I decided that this while exercise had been designed to make me realize how good my situation has been and how lucky I have been to have it.  That has definitely been the most important thing I have taken from this (that, and the stroking my ego got when I was offered the job).  I decided I would change my approach to,my job and not view it as a burden but view it for what it is - a great opportunity for me to contribute something of value to an organization, to work and interact with good and interesting people, and to have the flexibility with time and money it allows to do the things that are most important in my life.  I could have done without the stress this process brought me this week, but I am choosing to be grateful for it.  I took my new grateful attitude to work on Friday and I had a really good day.  It's just too bad it's taken me over three years in this role to come to this understanding of it.

Then, Friday night after work, I met Mike and the girls out for pizza downtown.  It was a nice evening so we ate outside.  People would stroll by - most of them very wisely heading to Ben and Jerry's for some yummy ice cream - when something caught my eye.  It was a shiny, round thing I was seeing - almost like a smooth ball.  But where I was seeing it was out of place and it took a minute for my mind to make sense of it.  I looked closer and it gave me a jolt to realize I was looking at the perfectly round, perfectly smooth bald head of a 10-12 year old girl.

I was stupefied.  I mean, I know there is such a thing as childhood cancer. I learned too much about it when I worked at MTSU and did terrific fundraisers for *St. Just Children's Research Hospital.  But there it was - 15 feet away from me.  This pretty little girl out with her family.  Battling cancer.

What the hell am I worrying about?

What the hell do I have to complain about?

I have enough.

I have plenty.

I have more than I deserve.

I don't know what gratitude is next to this family.

This family is grateful to all of their friends and family who are supporting them in this fight.  They are grateful to the team of doctors, nurses and other caregivers who are responsible for her care.  There are grateful for a good day like today when she's healthy enough and feeling good enough that they can go out together as a family and do something mundane like getting ice cream.  They are grateful for her strength and her confidence that she can be out in public at her age with a bald head and not worry about the double takes she gets from ignorant people like me.  This family knows gratitude.  And I am spoiled and unworthy of the things I have.  To this point, I haven't been smart enough to know that enough is as good as a feast.  But I know it now - having been shown it it two different ways within a span of 24 hours.  And I will make it a priority to never lose sight of it again.


* For information about donating to St. Just Children's Research Hospital, please follow this link.