My happy place

I’m old enough and wise enough now to know that life comes in cycles, some good and some not quite so good. I’m also wise enough to recognize that when it’s good, it’s a blessing worth acknowledging.

It’s such a simple thing, and such an amazing blessing, to be truly happy. I don’t know how I managed to luck into the three best kids on the planet, but I did. I love them so much that I can’t even grasp the limits of my own capacity for love. When I think about how much I love them, it’s like trying to comprehend the idea of an infinite universe; the more I try to understand it, the more the concept slips away from me, leaving me feeling wobbly in the wake of a kind of love-induced vertigo.

No, I haven’t been into the turkey wine. I just feel the need to be grateful, to be publicly thankful, for the ways in which my life is blessed. My mind keeps wandering back to the subject in idle moments lately, how truly wonderful it is to be me in this time and place. Everything I ever wanted out of life, I have right at this moment. Smart, funny, sweet children; a kind and loving and infinitely indulgent husband; a safe home; a good job; friends and family who truly love me. I’m even grateful for this silly little blog that fulfills my creative impulses and strokes my ego.

I’ve been trying to write a gratitude post for days, and this is the least soppy and sappy of the lot. YOU should be grateful I don’t subject you to the other drafts! And I know it’s a strange time to be feeling so beatifically grateful, with the uncertainty of elections and world finance and so much else up in the air. Like the farmers, though, I’m willing to make hay whenever the sun shines.

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner with my folks. We’re not religious people, and I can’t remember the last time we actually spoke out loud to praise our blessings before Thanksgiving dinner. Yesterday, though, both my dad and Tristan independently suggested we take a moment to enunciate the things for which we are grateful, and so we did.

See, more stuff to be thankful about: we’ve managed to raise kids who understand the value of gratitude. Who knew happiness could be a self-feeding cycle, too?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, friends celebrating today or later. Wishing you peace, contentment, happiness and gratitude.

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