gratitude day 362: "flecks of gold"

on christmas eve, after the new-pajama-clad children were tucked into their beds tim gave me the most wonderful gifts.

but the one gift that will forever be my favorite christmas gift--was my 2011 blog put together in a book. 

it was a complete and total surprise and the most perfect of perfect gifts that i could ever ask for.  i could hardly look at any of it, because each little part made me cry anew.  i was hugging and kissing tim and wiping mascara away as i looked at each of the little details he had added.  to the cover, the back, the title pages. 

and then there were my words.

beautiful, beautiful words.  and my favorite pictures.  and my favorite quotes and talks.  and my children.  and my family.  and my friends.  all there together on thick, shiny pages. 

it was perfect.  and i was so glad that tim had spent the days at "work" working on my book.  i know i would have been paralyzed with all the decisions from fonts to pictures sizes to cover colors.  i was grateful that he made it--and it was just how i wanted it.  he captured all of my heart in those 251 pages. 

and it gave me hope.

which was the greatest christmas present of all.

a week ago or so i realized that somewhere along the way i had become afraid of life.  i wasn't sure that i could trust it anymore.  as i looked to 2012 i wondered what hard things i might have to endure.  what depths of anguishing soul-searching i would discover.  and would i get a phone call to turn on the news and see our business in flames again?  and i was unsure of my own abilities as well.  was i enough, in all the faults that i had seen so clearly in the last year, to raise my children well?  was i enough to be valued and accepted and loved--when i was textbook "messed up" in so many ways? i was afraid that life might not give enough and that i might not be enough. 

and as i looked at each page of my book, simple abundance, i realized it was enough--more than enough.  and that i was enough--more than enough. 

and the patient accumulation of daily flecks had left me with more than nuggets enough.  tim wrote in his "editor's note) that i had always wanted to write a book and that he not only believed that i could but that i already did.  that was his gift to me.  for him to give me a glimpse of what was already there. 

i told tim, "please, please remind me of this moment when i am in the depths of despair so that i remember."  he laughed and said we had tried that before.  but truly, i wanted to catch this moment and bottle it up to uncork on days when i needed to remember.  so i found a little bottle and filled with with tiny flecks of silver glitter and corked it.

so later, i could remember. 

that moment.

and all my daily gratitudes.

that added up to a full, abundant life.

earlier this year i had gone to an interview.  it was a project to help someone (who i greatly admired) write her memoir.  i wasn't offered the project and i have wondered several times why i went to the interview.  it was an awesome opportunity to meet a personal hero and i thought perhaps that was it --a tender mercy.  but on christmas morning as i thought of that interview again i had the thought, you did not have time to write someone else's story this year. 

you were busy writing your own. 

Comments

[Tim]

And what an Awesome story it is.

[becca]

So beautiful. Merry, merry Christmas. And congratulations on writing your story.

[Mom]

Your blog is a gift that you give all of us each time your write.... I'm so glad that you received that gift back for Christmas. Brownie points (or is it elf points) for Tim!