Days 194 - 197: Christmas

Day 194 – For Sunday, December 25
Merry Christmas! A day of giving, and one would hope, gratitude would be part of it. Every Christmas, my sister and I got (from Santa, no less!) a package of thank-you notes. Before we deposited the Christmas checks, we wrote the thank-you notes & dropped them in the mail. An important reminder to my adult self, from my childhood: be grateful in the moment, before you forget about your little blessings and mercies in everyday life.
I'm also thankful for spending a lovely Christmas with my Grandma & Grandpa H in Tampa!



Day 195 – For Monday, December 26
Our family went to see “We Bought a Zoo” today. It seemed to be something the whole family might be able to agree on (and had a G rating for minimizing awkward sex scene viewing in front of parents). It’s a very sweet movie, but then again I am routinely overwhelmed by sappy emotion (technical term: schmaltz) and break down in tears habitually at movies. Key takeaway: in life, often 20 seconds of crazy courage is all you really need. Twenty seconds of courage to do something will often get you into it, irrevocably, and you don’t have to be courageous after that – you just have to deal with the consequences.
My sister and I practiced this today. We had been making lots of jokes about Beef O’Brady’s, a restaurant (a chain!) we learned was near our hotel through Google Maps. The Beef O’Brady’s website boasted a signature cocktail called a “beef-a-rita.” Never one to back down from a challenge, Laura and I went and tried the beef-a-ritas. Who wouldn’t want to consume a liquor drink that included a kind of meat in its title?


Well, twenty seconds of courage was all we needed to order the drink. Unfortunately we then needed about five minutes of gut-solid courage to consume it as well. It did not, as we feared, come with a jerky swizzle stick but it was oddly – troublingly – reminiscent of day-old mop water. Bad tequila is the worst.
Cheers to insane courage and bravery, and hoping the consequences are more palatable than a beef-a-rita!


Day 196 – For Tuesday, December 27
I’m grateful for 2012, for the coming year. It’s not really a fresh start – I definitely have some debt and baggage from this year (student loans don’t give you a “fresh start”) but it certainly feels like one. I need a new year, I need this one behind me. A barrier, a buffer between what has happened and who and where I am now. I reread my journal from 2011 - I realized how lucky I am, how much I went through. I'm grateful it's behind me. I also realized I had been doing gratitude all year - but I just started putting it online, to give myself accountability, halfway through the year. But I have been practicing my gratitude all year, visibly or invisibly. I am grateful that I have people holding me accountable for this practice!
I was also startled to reread some of what I had written, but also gratified. I have been saying, "Berna has been such a good friend since I've been back." But in reality, I found in my journal notes of days we had talked or texted when I was still in New York. The truth is that Berna has stood next to me since the storm started in April, and so much had happened that my memories became blurry with pain. I am grateful to remember this, I am grateful for my friends, I am grateful for the passage of time and the beginning of healing.


Day 197 – For Wednesday, December 28
This morning, as we left my grandparents’ house, we sat outside. My grandmother looked up at the sky. “I forget how blue it gets. Isn’t it beautiful?” I am lucky to live in a place where I get blue skies every day. I should see them more.
Tonight I sleep in my own bed, after a week of metal springs grinding on my spine at the hotel. Small mercies are at times the most powerful.