Tag Archives: gratitude

Is This a Blog or Therapy?

Posted on December 7, 2022 by mohawkvalleygirl

This will be a very fast Tired Tuesday post with not promises as to reaching my self-imposed, admittedly arbitrary 200-word minimum. I am ten-finger typing on my dining-room-table-top (for those of you just tuning in, it is a laptop on its last cyber legs, we dare not move it) on Wednesday morning. I have had coffee, taken my walk, and eaten breakfast, but have yet to make my lunch. I am, as I knew I would be, regretting not making my post last night. In my defense, I was depressed.

I fear this must be a blogger’s sick day, or perhaps another day when I whine and cry about my own petty personal problems. I remind myself that other people have much worse things to deal with. This does not always help, because I feel I am an ungrateful wretch for complaining at all. I do cultivate gratitude, pointing out to myself every little thing that I can feel thankful for. I read in some dumb woman’s magazine that it is impossible to feel depressed and grateful at the same time. It is not true, at least for me.

But never mind my whining, let me instead list a few things for which I can be thankful right now. It was not raining but merely misty this morning and warm, making it a delightful morning to take a walk. Some people had their Christmas lights on I do love Christmas lights. I have received a couple of Christmas cards already. I do not have to work Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I am gainfully employed at a job which makes a positive difference in people’s lives. I have a very nice family and am able to talk to my parents almost every day.

See, me? All this good stuff. And here is another one: I am about to publish a blog post of over 300 words. Is it a good blog post? Let us not ask for miracles. Part of me says I should just save this to drafts, it is nothing more than an attempt at self-therapy. However, I shall hit Publish, to let others with depression know they are not alone. I don’t know that they will be especially flattered to hear they are in the same club with me, but I cannot worry about that now. Perhaps I should look into getting some actual therapy.

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Posted in depression, humor, personal, Tired Tuesday, very personal and tagged blog post, blogging, gratitude, laptop computer, late post, not writing, ten finger typing, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

And How Do You Feel?

Posted on December 20, 2021 by mohawkvalleygirl

And now, a few words about depression. I guess I should rather say a few more words, since I have written about depression before. I’m not even sure I will say anything new, but I ask you to bear with me.

Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. I love the music, the decorations, giving presents, watching yet another version of “A Christmas Carol,” everything. And it makes me feel even worse when I am emphatically not inclined to enjoy any of it. What the hell, me?

It is not a constant feeling of sadness, so I have that going for me. But it does intrude at odd and increasingly frequent times. In addition to being uncomfortable, it makes it difficult to get Christmas stuff, as well as general life stuff, done.

The worst aspect of it is feeling that I am nothing but a whiny baby. Why can I not simply feel happy during what some have called the most wonderful time of the year? What is wrong with me?

I have read that gratitude is the cure for depression. It is impossible to feel depressed, one popular women’s magazine opined, when you are feeling grateful. All I can say is, if it is that easy for you, you indeed have something to be grateful for.

As for me, I DO count my blessings. Often it increases my depression, because I start feeling like an ungrateful wretch for feeling depressed in the face of such blessings. And now I also feel like a dull, redundant blogger, because I am sure I have expressed these thoughts before.

Finally I fall back on a thought which had helped me before: sometimes you just have to feel that way until you don’t feel that way any more.

In the meantime, I wanted to make a blog post, because I have not made one in a few days. I’m going to file this one under Wrist to Forehead Sunday and hold out for the next wave of Christmas spirit. As always, I hope You’ll stay tuned.

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Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged blog post, blogging, Christmas, Christmas spirit, depression, gratitude. Bookmark the permalink.

Nothing Lame For Me To Do

Posted on February 20, 2021 by mohawkvalleygirl

Regular readers know that however many foolish posts I may have during the week, I almost always have Lame Post Friday. This week, it is kind of a necessity, because I ain’t got much. All week pretty much all I have done is go to work and come home. Not much to blog about.

On the one hand, it is good to be gainfully employed. Furlough is not much fun. Being laid off is less so. I know I am blessed to have found a job as quickly as I did. So anybody gearing up for a round of Just-Be-Grateful-That can stand down.

That is one of my pet peeves, by the way. Sometimes one just wants to bitch. We do not want someone bleating at us, “Just be grateful you have a job” on the days your job sucks. Or “Just be grateful you have a car” when the damn thing breaks down or the defrost doesn’t work. “Just be grateful you have indoor plumbing” when you just spent the morning plunging the toilet. “Just be grateful you’re the murderer not the murderee” when you are trying to dispose of a body.

You see what I mean.

One thing I am always truly grateful for, without being reminded to be, is that people read my blog. Happy Friday, everyone.

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I’m Grateful it’s Wrist to Forehead Sunday

Posted on May 18, 2020 by mohawkvalleygirl

This is actually a pretty good way to make sure Monday is a lousy day.

No, I am not pouring booze into a blender. I am enjoying a mere moderate amount of white wine and plan to go to bed at an early hour. Tomorrow I return to work after almost two months off. Oh don’t shake your finger at me and tell me to be grateful I have a job to go back to. Of course I’m grateful for what I have.

But while we’re on the subject, did you ever notice how easy it is to tell other people what they ought to be grateful for? You can put almost any kind of a gripe out there, big or small, and you can be pretty sure some yahoo will pipe in with, “Just be grateful that…”

“I have to go to work!”

“Just be grateful you have a job!”

“My house burned down!”

“Just be grateful you got out alive!”

“I lost my left leg!”

“Just be grateful you didn’t lose both!”

These may all be very good points, and gratitude is indeed often appropriate. Sometimes, however, you just want the space to be grumpy.

So this is my space, on Wrist to Forehead Sunday. Tomorrow I will be grateful. Today, I will have a little more wine. Happy Sunday, everyone.

Lame Us Give Thanks

Posted on November 24, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

So here it is the day before Thanksgiving (although this post may be dated for Thanksgiving, because I never fixed the timestamp on this thing) (I don’t know how; technology mystifies me). Personally, I would be thankful if I had remembered to bring my notebook to work with me an written a post in it earlier. But I suppose there is no point in pining for what didn’t happen.

As I continue to fight feeling down and blue, I remember reading somewhere that gratitude can counteract depression. Let’s see if it works.

I am thankful for my husband and my family and my job and my dog and cable television, when there is something on I want to see (does anybody remember the Bruce Springsteen song “57 Channels and Nothing On”? If he only knew!) . Oh, that parenthetical comment was not very thankful, was it? But I guess I am thankful I can remember things from the ’80s (that song was in the ’80s, wasn’t it?). May women my age begin to have memory problems. I think I read that somewhere.

Another thing I am thankful for is that I have the rest of the week off. A four-day weekend! Woohoo! And that makes today Friday for me! So it’s Lame Post Friday! I think this one certainly qualifies. I hope all of you have a lovely Wednesday or Friday if it’s one for you, too. I hope to see you all again on Thanksgiving (when it will possibly be Non-Sequitur Thursday).

I’m Grateful I Finished This Post

Posted on November 26, 2015 by mohawkvalleygirl

You know, in a little more than a month, people are going to start asking each other what are their New Year’s Resolutions. And some people will answer, with varying degrees of huffiness, that THEY do not make New Year’s Resolutions. Some will say they are perfect as they are; the less obnoxious will say they always strive to improve and do not NEED an arbitrary date to do so.

What has this to do with Thanksgiving, you may ask. Well, I will tell you, I hope with no huffiness but with honesty.

I try to spend my life in a state of relative gratitude. For one reason, when you are feeling grateful, you feel less depressed, angry, resentful, sad and other negative emotions. For another reason, it helps to counteract my usual complaints and whining, which I’m afraid can become rather tiresome. In confess, I pursue this attitude with a greater or lesser degree of success at different times. As Billy Wilder so aptly observed, nobody’s perfect.

For example, I complain about my husband’s job but hasten to add that I am grateful he has a job. I used to groan over the necessity to go to the laundromat but hastened to add that I was grateful there were lots of machines and the place was clean. Right now I am almost purely grateful for our new (to us) washer and drier. Soon I’ll find something there to bitch about but no doubt will hasten to add how grateful I am that I have them.

You see where I’m going with this.

I am looking forward to tomorrow (Thanksgiving) as a day I will spend time with family and eat a lot of good food. I am not going to wax eloquent about all that I am grateful for. Please believe that I am grateful for many things. And feel free to share your own list of gratitudes on Facebook, in person, in a comment here or in your own blog (my computer is telling me “gratitudes” is not a word, but I can’t think of a better one).

More astute readers will remember that this is Wuss-out Wednesday and be nodding wisely. I am, of course, grateful for all my readers (you know, for not posting a list, I have mentioned a few gratitudes, haven’t I?). I shall humbly sign off now and begin pondering tomorrow’s post.

Now, about that New Year’s Resolution…

Mohawk Valley Girl