November 2022 – *the gratitude-a-thon

gratitude-a-thon day 2088: extending the gratitude

November 23, 2022November 23, 2022Uncategorized1 Comment

We here at the gratitude-a-thon (meaning ME here at the gratitude-a-ton) are pondering Thanksgiving, that time of year when everybody prays to the altar we live at on the daily–gratitude. The the lists that will be thrown around the tables tomorrow, ranging in size, depth, and magnitude, are music to our ears (meaning MY ears). But once the turkey disappears, why do we throw the gratitude out with the leftovers? Here’s my list of why you should make your Thanksgiving gratitude last all year:

Gratitude is cheap. Oh wait, it’s actually free! How many things in life that are worthwhile are actually 0 cents?
Gratitude can improve your health. It improves your immune system, lowers your blood pressure and makes your aches and pains feel less achey and pain-y.
Gratitude makes us feel less isolated. It makes us feel more outgoing and compassionate. And if that were on the racks at Bloomingdales, tell me you wouldn’t fill your cart? (They don’t have carts at Bloomingdales, but you know what I mean).
Gratitude makes us feel more positive and optimistic. And I’m sorry, but in this cuckoo clock world, you gonna shun that?
Gratitude puts us in the moment, instead of loitering in yesterday and tomorrow. It allows us to feel the joy in what we have and not do that nasty take-the-good-stuff-for-granted thing.
Gratitude can help you deal with the green monster, no not Fenway Park’s green monster, we’re talking jealousy. It’s hard to feel envy while you’re feeling gratitude.
Gratitude makes you look at the whole of the good and where it came from. When you do this, you get a feeling of community and appreciation for those in your life who’ve helped you get whatever it is your grateful for. It takes a village, people.
Gratitude can improve your resilience. When you’re always looking for the good in even the worst situation, you’re going to be able to have more positive emotions roam around your body and mind.
Gratitude has been proven to lessen depression. Tell me that doesn’t improve your mood.
Gratitude can help us stop being so controlling. If you’re on the gratitude hunt, you’re feeding yourself a diet of being thankful for what you have vs. what you want or think you need, or must get.

I could keep writing this list, but then I wouldn’t be able to make my New York Times macaroni and cheese recipe for the first time, which will go with the million other items we’ll be indulging in tomorrow, for which I am super grateful. See, see how I did that–that’s how easy it is to get your gratitude on. Just consider all that good you have hiding all over your life. In every corner, there are teeny weeny and mega things that you can bow down to. What are yours? Ask yourself tomorrow, and then ask yourself every day afterward. I’m not trying to be bossy, I’m just trying to give you a tried and true habit that can actually make your life better. But of course, what else do you think we’d feed you here at the gratitude-a-thon–the seven deadly sins?

Happy Thanksgiving, EVERYBODY! Hoping you’re with people you love and you have an overabundance of mashed potatoes.

gratitude-a-thon day 2087: get busy living, or get busy dying

November 14, 2022November 14, 2022Uncategorized2 Comments

I got an email on Saturday morning that let me know that a guy I went all the way from Kindergarten to high school with, had died. I had that reaction we get when we aren’t prepared for something we learn. A questioning of the words, a full-body tingle, a quick reread. He’d been sick for many years, battling some sort of lung issue. And now he was gone.

It wasn’t that we were very close friends, we weren’t, but we were certainly friends. Oh, he did ask me to the Senior prom, which I’d had to say no to because I’d already said yes to someone else. And we did share that outdated and ridiculous superlative pick of being Best Looking in our senior class. And we may or may not have had a date in Boston after college that ended in a make-out session in my Newbury Street apartment, which was like kissing your brother and we never saw each other again! But like so many people I went to school with, he was a constant, the low din of background music, the Bethel backdrop of growing up. See, I never moved once. I grew up in the same small town, in the same old creaky Victorian house for my whole life. It was like that for many of us. There were generations who’d inhabited that tiny town. Everybody knew everybody. And the people you went to school with, who showed up every September with new haircuts or new bras, a few new inches, or the fear of having an erection in class, were such a constant in your every day, you’d remember them the rest of your life.

There are many reasons I feel sad over this way-too-early loss. One is that it is premature. Yes, I know, he wasn’t 25 years old. But it’s still too soon, there are still too many happy and astounding experiences that will never be. His wife shouldn’t be widowed. His kids shouldn’t be without their dad. Two is the wake-it-on-up call that says Jeez, here’s where we are, class of 1977–we’re dying now.

Armand Menegay. That was his name. He was smart and gorgeous and athletic and had a great personality. He’d created a good life. One that shouldn’t have ended so fucking soon. But he reminded me to be more present today, to love a little harder and louder, to remember that as Andy says to Ellis in the Shawshank Redemption, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.” We all have that expiration date looming. Grateful to have known you, Armand. Here’s to you.

gratitude-a-thon day 2086: stay in the day

November 2, 2022November 2, 2022UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Annnnnnnnnd the holidays are on us. Yup, we just carved the pumpkins, and without hesitation, in fact, with overlap, the stores brought out the whole nine yards of decorations and elves on shelves and silly festive sayings on blocks of fake wood. ‘Tis the season to manic panic about gifting and get-togethers and trying to dodge bad Hallmark Channel movies.

Do I sound Grinchy? I’m actually not. But I do find the premature birth of the Christmas season to be a buzz kill. Why can’t we just slow it on down, people? The next holiday is Thanksgiving. Why not lean into the gratitude of that, which is all about food (featuring mashed potatoes!!!!) and being thankful for the good stuff we have, putting an oversized magnifying glass to what we already possess, not what we have to purchase (right now, while on sale, 40% off, TODAY ONLY……).

I guess what I’m saying is why must Thanksgiving foot the bill for the greediness of Christmas, Santa?

Let’s face it, we know why the ho, ho, ho has to start early, so that the maximum amount of green (forget the red) can be made. I understand that it’s all just business. But you know, we here at the gratitude-a-thon (meaning ME here at the gratitude-a-thon) take offense at our holiday being overlooked.

Gratitude is even more vital during the holidays. When the conversation is all about get, get, get, it’s important to remember what we have, have, have.

So, while I may have done a little pre-season shopping already, I just want to state how grateful I am for the upcoming holiday based on one of my most favorite things ever–gratitude. (And you thought I was going to say mashed potatoes….)