It's The Little Things

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were big things."

--Robert Brault

Some days are clumsy and awkward, like your first junior high school dance. Everything you say comes out wrong, you're obsessed with what people are thinking about you, and you have bad hair to boot. Your insecurity feels like a scratchy wool blanket thrown over your head. And even though you know there are people out there who are having a lot harder time than you are (in fact you can think of at least three you know personally), you still can't crawl out of your cramped little hole of self-pity. Yuck. I mean, really. If you're going to obsess and worry shouldn't it be over climate change or how you're going to ever afford to send your kids to college?

Some days are just small and crummy though, which is different and definitely not as bad as big and awful. I am not my best self by a long shot on crummy days. I tend to get all needy or whiny or grumpy. And then I worry about people not liking me because I'm all needy or whiny or grumpy. Enough! On days like that it's important to remember the little things. I should pull myself out of myself and look around at all there is to be grateful for, right? So after slogging through a needy, whiny kind of day yesterday, I tried to think of one little thing to cherish about the day. 

... Nothing. Couldn't think of one thing.

Now, I'm sure there were actually plenty of things to cherish yesterday, but I was entirely too whiny to notice them. Good thing I keep lists of things I am grateful for to refer to on days like this. I try to write down at least three things I'm grateful for in my journal almost every day. It's part of my personal campaign to start seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. And, you know what? It actually works.

Here are some little things I have been grateful for over the last year: That my husband makes coffee every morning before I get up, for thrift store shopping, for sweet potato cornbread, wild mustard flowers, and kale salad, that I am no longer terrified to sing in front of people, that my dog Zeke dragged me out for a walk on a cold blustery day, for my mom on her birthday, for a little bit of quiet in the morning, for a perfect swirl in the peanut butter jar, for the sunflowers bowing to me from the vase across the room, for all the terrific people I get to make music with, for time to snuggle in bed with my son in the morning, for Bananagrams and "Sherlock" with my daughter, for minestrone soup on a rainy day, for self-restraint at the new REI store, for the people who read my blog, for two kids who are fantastic hikers, for a lively choir rehearsal, for good friends who listen.

And yesterday? I am grateful that my husband devotes his Monday afternoons to soccer with my son, that Zeke and I watched the tide come in from "our spot" on the beach, for a cold beer on a warm evening.

 Life is good.