Gratitude List

I reentered the world of Swap Bot recently. Briefly, Swap Bot is a website for people to exchange things like letters, crafts, postcards, art, etc. with others either regionally or internationally. 2011 through 2012 I was incredibly active on this site, spending hundreds of dollars on postage, goodies

and stationery to write to tons of penpals and swap partners. Swap Bot lead to other sites and ways to meet people, and in turn, I gained probably around fifteen penpals at one point.  I loved getting to know people through letters all across the globe, but eventually the extra money for postage and the energy to write ran out and the energy for self-improvement and intense therapy kicked in. I'm not sad that I stopped writing to work on myself, but I am sad that I lost connection with a lot of beautiful women that helped me before I really started to work my process to get better. Now that I've been regularly going to therapy and working on myself for over two years now, I feel confident that I'm ready to swap again...at least digitally. As the aforementioned post stated, I'm still incredibly poor, so I created a swap for an email pal and signed up for a few digital swaps that include sending meaningful YouTube videos and, excitingly enough, sending your partners a gratitude list. I'm especially excited about the latter, as it allows me to perform a therapeutic exercise that I haven't completed in a long time.

At the urging of my therapist, I had started but not kept up with a gratitude journal a while back...naming three things a day for which I am grateful. Some days, when my mood was really low or I was feeling especially angry, finding three things that didn't make me want to spontaneously burst into tears was good enough, but as I emerge from the cloud of depression and anxiety, finding concrete examples of my gratitude becomes less painful and actually incredibly empowering. Anyway, the swap allows you to name ten things that you're grateful for and email those things to five partners. At first, ten seemed like a really daunting number, but the more I think about, the more I want to say. Maybe these will be what I share with my swap partners, maybe not...

1. I feel really grateful to have the kind of job where I could go to therapy and get on the road to stable mental health. So many people don't have health insurance or pay huge premiums that put them in financial ruin. I never lose sight of how lucky I am to be able to see the doctor with just a small co-pay.

2. I have the ability to choose the providers of my care. Today, I called my doctor's office in order to change my primary physician and get an appointment with her colleague. It was an awkward conversation that lead to my stating that I would have to find another practice if this couldn't be achieved. I am so lucky to be able to be selective about who I see and how they treat me.

3. The means to wear clothes and accessories that make me feel comfortable and good about my physical appearance. My Mum was kind enough to buy me a new necklace yesterday and it is totally rad. It jingles and is totally busy!

4. Spotify. I can listen to it at work, in the car and wherever I have an internet connection. I've listened to tons of new things in the last few months that I would've never known existed and got to listen to a lot of new singles from artists that I've learned to love.

5. Clean, running water and access to indoor plumbing. This is such a blessing that is taken for granted and such a limited resource that we abuse with little regard to how precious and finite this resource is.

6. My parents are in really good health. I know that this isn't true for everyone in my age group, so to see them still doing what they want to do is a two-fold benefit: I'm granted the ability to spend time with them unfettered by things like declining health and I get to aspire to do that I want to do in thirty years.

7. Plants and Flowers. Not to be too over-the-top, but isn't it a complete flipping miracle that a tree grows from a seed?! Doesn't anyone else find this totally incredible? People will often call the human life-cycle a miracle, but really, babies aren't that much smaller than adults compared to a seed versus a Redwood.

8. Serendipity. Isn't it cool when something totally unexpected happens and you're in the right place at the right time? Maybe it's subconscious intent, but I'm diggin' it!

9. Automobiles. I've gotten to see a lot of friends and go a lot of cool places in my life because myself or someone else drove. I feel really lucky to have had this luxury for a long time, even if I was a late-bloomer to driving!

10.  Colors. Remember that part in, "Mask," where Eric Stoltz tries to explain to Laura Dern what colors are? Was anyone else a little crushed at the notion that she said that she just didn't get it until he showed her? A lifetime without colors seems so sad.

When I was writing this list, a billion more things came to mind. Alright, I might be exaggerating a little. Maybe the challenge will be to write ten additional things to my swap partners. Twenty things in one day to be grateful for. I feel happy about that!