Gratitude In The Horror Timeline

I have to say, I'm really enjoying these little gratitude check-ins. I hope you're enjoying them too. Here's what I am grateful for this week:

The week before last, I was in writing hell. Absolute HELL. I came home in TEARS telling my husband that it was over for me, that I was quitting writing to become a summer camp director/tarot card reader/traveling witch. He was watching the Lakers lose their basketball game, so he was not really his most attentive self, which only made it WORSE.

However, I'm happy to report that I have turned the corner. This happens every single time, and still, I find it impossible to remember to expect these feelings. Every time I sit down to write, I expect brilliance to flow forth from my fingertips with ease, and every single time I find myself enraged, frustrated, and bereft, believing surely that I've lost any ounce of creative magic I once had. This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME. Why can't I ever remember that this is part of the process? Why do I insist on beating the shit out of myself for weeks, only to finally finish a draft, read it and think, oh this isn't that bad, I can make this work. Why can't I remember in the moment that anything worth doing is going to be hard and that good work takes time? I am insanely grateful to be on the other side of the process (for now), and as always, there's nothing better than having written.

A few nights ago, I bore witness to my daughter practicing Ode To Joy on the guitar and berating herself every time she made a single mistake. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, she screamed in frustration and said things like, "HOW AM I SO STUPID?" It was horrific to watch. I felt like an absolute failure of a mother, because where else could she have gotten this hypercritical perfectionist streak? I promise you that I have never ever told my daughter she is stupid or been even remotely critical of her, but can I promise that she hasn't witnessed me in meltdown mode when I can't do something that I believe should be easy? No, sadly, I can't promise that.

But because this is about gratitude, I'll say this: I am grateful I witnessed this outburst from my daughter. I'm grateful I was able to calm her down and tell her that the reason we practice things is because they are hard, not because they are easy, and that the expectation of perfection is not helpful. If you were perfect at guitar, why would you ever have to practice? I also told her that she needs to be kinder to herself, coax herself, persuade herself, that she shouldn't talk to my favorite little girl that way. And, of course, inevitably, a few of the words I said to her resonated with me. I need to be kinder to myself when I'm writing. No good comes from sitting in front of a computer telling myself I'm a stupid ass bitch. So I'm grateful for the mirror that having children provides, and I'm hopeful that my daughter's neuroplasticity will allow me to help her heal some of this perfectionism before she grows up.

As always, I remain grateful for my nephew and his deep and abiding love for my dog, Pip. They are best friends. Pip is tolerant of his Lenny-esque hugs, and Arlo has learned how to say "GOOD DOG!" It's a match made in heaven.

My friends had a baby, and my kids made cards for both the baby and (more importantly) her big sister. Graeme spent hours on her cards. It was multiple days worth of hours spent on the illustrations and coloring of the images. But my favorite part was the note, which you can read below.

Over the weekend, we took Graeme and her friend to see Hamilton for the first time (Toby was supposed to go, but at the last minute he became very concerned that he would not be able to sit still and he really really wanted to go to hockey, so we let him sit it out). I always love experiencing theater through my daughter's eyes. She was rapt, loving every minute. At intermission, she turned to me breathlessly and said, "It's already intermission? How?" I'm grateful that my kids love theater as much as I do (Toby also loves theater very much, he just hates sitting still).

Toby told us that the thing he wants more than anything in the whole wide world is to ride in a limo, so for his birthday, we're making that happen. I don't know where he even got the idea of a limo, but he's fixated on it – he talks a lot about how there's soda in the limo, for example. He and the two friends who are going to join us for this birthday limo extravaganza have been drawing pictures of the limo at school. I'm deeply grateful for this picture:

That's what I got today, people. It's really hard to find things to be positive about right now, but gratitude helps. What are you grateful for? What's been bringing you joy? Tell me in the comments.