Some of you know that H and I broke up. Some of you know that because I posted a blog last week telling the somber, gut-twisting story about how he drove away leaving behind only tire tracks in the snow and how I stood there sobbing in my bathrobe and boots, and how I spent the next hours and days waiting and waiting for the snow to melt, for those tell-tale tracks to disappear, because they kept reminding me of how he exited my life so abruptly.
Some of you also noticed that I took that blog post down. “You should put that post back up,” some of you wrote. “He took advantage of you. He was selfish,” others wrote. One friend wrote, “You should have been much harder on him than you were.”
But my mother’s voice reproached me. “That’s not charitable,” her age-old recording in my head kept reminding me.
Understanding that the definition of charitable is “kind or lenient in one’s attitude towards others,” then yes, my mother was right. I also continued to hear my mom’s other lifelong reproach saying, “You tell people too much.” Based on my blog and my forthcoming memoir, obviously I ignore this voice 99.9 percent of the time. But in my heart I didn’t feel right about the “snow tracks” story. It wasn’t charitable and what happened between H and me didn’t need to be shared so publicly. I took the post down.
A few days later, my sister gave me an early Christmas present. A Gratitude Journal. It was not lost on me that she gave me this “thoughtful gift” in direct response to my excessive complaining to her—mostly about H. “Wah. Wah. Wah,” is all I said over and over. (God, I can be such a whiner!)
The Gratitude Journal contains an introduction discussing how to be happy, how being grateful and expressing that gratitude is a key to feeling good about life. The author states that she wrote in her gratitude journal every day for six weeks and saw positive results, and that she really felt better. About everything.
Well, I wrote in my new gratitude journal one day—just one page—and the results were instantaneous. It was like I was a wind-up toy marching in the wrong direction and someone picked me up by the back of the neck, turned me around and set me moving in the opposite direction, the one away from the negative and instead toward the positive.
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| Gratitude — and happiness — can be found in the simple things, like a spectacular winter sunset in Eldon, Iowa. |
Of course I am disappointed and down about the sudden unraveling of my relationship with H (one week before Christmas, no less!) And unfortunately the break up dredges up deeper fears: I am afraid I will never find love again. And because I am still grieving Marcus I worry that I will never be a desirable partner to anyone. But now I can and will put a stop all that negative thinking and remember gratitude. I have so much to be grateful for! My loving friends, my close family, my scruffy dogs, my adorable (and affordable) house, my good health, my soon-to-be published book, and so much more. And, really, truly, I am grateful for H—for four months of great snuggling, laughter, hiking, traveling, my introduction to the South (and grits and biscuits), morning dog walks, shared meals, shared stories, wonderful companionship and friendship.
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| A full moon rising over my favorite cornfield is something to be grateful for. |
And so, the blog post of last week will remain sealed in a vault. Moreover, I have told my friend, the one who said I should have been harder on him, “I have no reason to say anything unkind about H. He is a good person and in spite of our relationship not being what I had hoped it could be, he still gave me a lot. And I am grateful.”
Gratitude feels good.