Gratitude

It has been an interesting holiday season. I have had my disappointments, reconnected with old friends and lost new ones. I have been scared for my health and had two MRIs of my brain. Things might not have worked out the way that I would have planned, but in the words of motivational speaker Les Brown, "Just because Fate doesn't deal you the right cards, doesn't mean that you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards to get to their maximum potential."

I must believe that everything happens for a reason--every bit of suffering, every disappointment, every moment where we pause to wonder what the world really has in store for us.

It hasn't been an easy couple of months--that's for sure--but there are still many things that I am grateful for. And if I pause to look at those things, everything seems so much better.

I am grateful for:

1. The moment of silence on the top of the mountain. The moment before I dig my poles in and take off. That moment of calm and serenity.
2. The feeling of my cat's fur when she lies beside me at night.
3. My parents.
4. My friends--new and old. The reciprocal relationship of friendship.
   
5. The feeling of galloping around the ring with my horse beneath me.
6. Hope.
7. The uninhibited laughter of children.
   
8. Health.
9. The soft, smooth feeling of the pages in a book.
   
10. The memories of past experience--those that are only my past, those that determine my now, and those that will shape my future.
    

I could go on. But I'll leave it at that. You may add your own, "I am grateful for"s in the comment section. Think of them every day and you might just find that the world (with all it's randomness and suffering) makes just a little bit more sense.