Grateful.

"How do you get through the first holiday since?" 

I got this text on Thanksgiving morning from a friend.

I had to think about it.  

Two years and two months later, I'm still trying to figure out how to get through holidays.  

I think a part of my will always be trying to figure it out.

So, I told her what I told myself that first year every time I had to do something or get through something I was dreading:

"It's 24 hours.  And not even a full 24 hours, since we sleep through part of that time.  And I've been through worse 24 hours.  Lots worse.  Today you have people with you that will pick you up when you hit the floor.  It's ok to hide in the bathroom.  It's ok to not laugh and smile.  It's ok to be upset.  You don't have to be the strongest today.  That's what the people you are with today are for.  Let them be strong for you."

I still tell myself that.

Sometimes it helps.

Sometimes it doesn't.

What does help is remembering that, even though my life can feel like a shit sandwich with mayo and mushrooms sometimes, I truly have a lot of things I am grateful for.

(Sidebar: I love how on Yacht Rock Radio you can hear Michael McDonald singing in three different songs in a row, yet none of them are credited to him, since he's basically the special guest star on 90% of the songs on that station.  Also, I'm listening to Yacht Rock Radio as I write this.)

Back to grateful.

I have an incredible support system - family, framily, friends, coworkers, the little people I teach, the pup.  All of them make the days more full of love.

I have a Canadian Family that I love - and it will soon be expanding since a new Cumiford/Golden will be entering the world in a few months.  And that makes my heart so happy for so many reasons.

I have learned to take time for me, set boundaries and even say no now and again - and it's ok if that makes me seem selfish - it's necessary and needed because without that time, I'd be a lesser version of me - and no one wants or needs THAT!

And I'm grateful for what I've experienced and learned in life - especially in the last 15 years or so.

I was telling a friend Thursday night that I've said to my sister, more than once, that I didn't understand what I did to be dealt such a shitty hand in life.  I went on to explain that in the last decade and a half (or so) I've been in more than one bad relationship - one was so bad it nearly broke me - how I've lost my mother, and my 3 remaining grandparents, how I've watched my dad take on cancer more than once, and how, even though he's won each time, each fight takes a bit more out of him, and how even though all that bad happened, I found and had Sean to love and lean on and marry, only to have him die in front of me.  

And then one day I realized that all that pain, all that loss, means there was a lot of love (shitty ex boyfriend not included, of course.)

Keep in mind, I didn't feel like this in the beginning, it took a while to get here.

And I would do it all again.  I would suffer through all the pain of loss again and again.  

Even knowing each story would end the same, I would do it again.

Because that great, breaking, unbearable pain?  That feeling of loss that words can't even begin to explain?

That means there was tremendous love.

And I've had tremendous love in my life.

A ridiculous fuck-ton of love in my life.

(Fuck-ton is not an accurate measurement, just an estimation.  You're welcome.)

For all of that, I am grateful.

(and for Michael McDonald's smooth, yachty, background singing.)