• Today I'm grateful for my three sons. (I'm always grateful for them.)
Today feels like a day of gentle love and appreciation for my kids, regardless of frustration with them or worry for them... just a soft, sweet, pure love for them as the children they were, and the adults they are.
• Today I'm grateful for growth. I was able to let my eldest son know that the way he talks to me is often unacceptable. I was able to hopefully teach him a little about not using one's emotions as cudgels to bash others with so that they will feel as badly as the we feel. It's a means of emotional coercion/manipulation and it's emotional abuse. Period.
I experienced that a great deal in the LTR that I recently ended.
I also experienced it a lot, growing up, so much so that to me, it was normal behavior... until it got so bad that I wanted to die.
• Today I'm grateful for many material things such as an apartment that I love, a comfortable bed to sleep in, food to eat, a washer and dryer to clean my clothes and bedding, a vehicle to drive rather than to live in, literature of both the recovery and the entertaining varieties, streaming music and video, furniture... just so many creature comforts that are easy to overlook until you don't have them.
• Today I'm so grateful for recovery - all forms of recovery. If you're getting better and happy with your life, I'm grateful for whatever you're doing.
For me, this has been the most eye-opening period in my recovery, to date. I'm so much aware of my issues and how much I muck up my life, over and over. It's not even chemicals that start my downfall. They are usually the result of all the $*** that went on before I picked up.
• Today I'm grateful for friends who are walking paths similar to mine and want to offer a hand when I need it, and are willing to take my hand when they need it, other along the way.
What a beautiful thing.
What a painfully beautiful journey.
(My eyelids are heavy today and it's hard to focus.
I'm going to call in and cancel my appointments for the day. I'm canceling with a late notice and it will not go over well with my providers, but my body and mind have told me that today is a rest and recuperate day. If I do not listen to my body now, I'll pay for it in myriad ways down the line. I'm not willing to get sick over it, just for today.)