This week, my girls and I gathered in our family room and watched the inauguration on TV. It was, of course, a much bigger moment than just an inauguration. In the space of less than an hour, history was made, glass ceilings were shattered, color barriers were broken, and democracy, as I was raised to believe in it, was restored.
Watching it, I felt a rise of emotion. It hit me so overwhelmingly and with such speed that it surprised me. I was already crying by the second verse of JLo’s song. By the time Amanda Gorman finished reciting her poem, I was a snotty mess. My daughter Em looked up at me, concerned. “Why are you crying, Mama? That was good, right? You said Joe Biden and Ms. Kamala were going to do good.”
I looked into the open sweet innocent face of my tiny gangly human and I said, “Because now anything is possible. One day that president could be you.”
She beamed.
And that was why I was crying. My pride in and respect for Vice President Harris runs deep. So that was why I was crying. But that also had nothing to do with it.
I was crying because it was no longer a fact that our government would put babies in cages. I was crying because Dreamers could sleep at night safe in their beds. I was crying because while the fight for racial justice continues, I would no longer look at my kids and fear that the fight is futile. I was crying because I can still feel the loss of what could have been accomplished in the last four years had a certain set of white women voted for their own survival instead of embracing misogynistic beliefs that Hillary was “cold” or “not nice” or “too smart for her own good.” (Yeah, I said that.) I was crying because, no matter what lies ahead, the destruction spread in the wake of the last four years is over.
I was crying because I was relieved.
Because I was happy.
Because I was grateful.
I was grateful. I am grateful. Filled with gratitude to have it all behind us.
Yesterday, the gratitude came easy. But gratitude can sometimes be hard to find. Many times in the past year, I’ve had a very hard time locating gratitude. It’s not simple to get yourself to reach the space inside to be grateful. But that space? That gratitude space?
If you open yourself to it, that space can feel like a hit of clean sweet oxygen from a mountain top. It can renew you. If you can find gratitude in your angriest moments, your saddest moments, your most hurt moments, you can rise out of the pain and into something better. The muck of life can be washed clean. If you can say yes to gratitude, you can step out of your darkest places and find a little light.
And any light is better than none.
You are maybe rolling your eyes. Raising a not-so-nice finger. I hear you. But I don’t say this trying to give you some kind of mushy, self-help, heal-y, woo-woo guru talk. I say this as a practical matter.
I say this as fact.
Gratitude works.
I say this because now I know gratitude and gratitude knows me and it has fundamentally rearranged the way my brain works.
The part of my brain that thinks about telling someone all about themselves — up, down, and sideways, using ALL the words until they are in tears? She’s quieter now. Not totally quiet because sometimes…I mean, sometimes it needs to happen. But still. Quieter.
The part of my brain that puts me face down on the floor, hurt and broken, panicked and sad, unable to get up because something really bad has kicked my life in the gut? She keeps me on my feet now. And that is an enormous gift.
2020 was hard for all of us. For all the reasons everyone knows, 2020 was painful for us collectively. And for reasons that are deeply personal, 2020 was gut-wrenching for me. I have a beautiful amazing village of friends and family (I’ll talk about the importance of that next time) who surround me even from afar, even under quarantine, even when I don’t want to be surrounded. But still, 2020 was hard. I was moving forward, getting it done, taking care of business — because moms (all the single mothers in the house say hey!) don’t get to quit and neither do CEO/writers who have Netflix waiting for scripts. But I was feeling…well, like I said, 2020 was bad for us all.
My point is, I understand that these days, reaching that gratitude space for you might feel harder than it's ever felt before.
At my lowest moments, I have found a way to locate gratitude. The first time I did it, I was sure I was doing something futile and crazy. Woo-woo and stupid. A waste of my time.
It’s turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done.
The kids were in bed. I turned off my phone. I had no chance of interruption. I got out a piece of paper and a pen. Old school. I sat down at the kitchen table.
I gave myself an assignment.
The assignment? I would write down all the good things that had happened to me in 2020 so far.
These could not be good things that happened to other people. Those are wonderful, but we are all comfortable taking time to cheer for others. It is always much easier to celebrate the beauty in someone else’s life than it is to look within.
These could not be good things that happened to the country or the world at large. Those are mighty and important, but those are obvious and collective and irrefutable.
I needed to write down good things that happened to ME. To my life. In my life personally. And the criteria was simple. The good things had to be things I considered good regardless of outside opinion and they had to be things that had a tangible impact on me and those I love. In other words, I had to list good things that mattered to me in a real and important way
Good things that happened to me in 2020.
I told myself I could not get up until I came up with ten good things.
Ten Good Things.
Staring at a blank page, in the mood I was in, Ten Good Things felt like an emotional Everest.
Ten Good Things? I didn’t think I could come up with one good thing that met the criteria. People I love died. Personal relationships unraveled. Virtual school was a nightmare my kids were not surviving. I was worried and angry and stressed and tired of having to pretend I was “just fine” for everyone else. Plus my hair looked tore up — all kitchen and bad edges. Fuck ten good things.
I sat for an hour and ten minutes without writing a single word.
Ten good things….
I got a glass of wine. I sat some more.
There were no good things. How could there be when...
Beckett learned to ride a bike.
The words pop into my head, uninvited but welcome. Then there was suddenly the warm memory of a summer day. A dusty path. The blue bike. My brainy, stubborn youngest child, desperately wanting to ride, too scared to do so and too proud to admit her fears to anyone. My sister speaking quietly to her. And the auntie magic works because suddenly Beckett is on the bike. My sister holds the back of the bike seat. She explains the mechanics of riding to my shaking baby and then, patient and encouraging, my sister gets Beckett moving. Holding the seat, she runs behind the bike, helping Beckett stay upright as she pedals. Over and over and over, my sister encourages and runs, encourages and runs, encourages and runs. She senses just the right moment to let go. Then she and I watch as my kid sails down the dusty path behind her older sister.
“I am doing it!!!!” Beckett is screaming the words into the wind. I am witnessing the exact moment my sister helped my daughter find her fearlessness.
In that second, I realize that the person who taught Beckett to ride a bike is the same person who taught me to ride 40 years earlier. I was just as afraid. My sister was just as patient.
Later that day, my child will tell me in a decisive tone she can do anything now. I know that feeling. I am so glad she does too.
Now, in my kitchen with pen in hand, my rage and exhaustion and stress are gone. I’m warm, awash in the memory, so visceral that I can almost taste the dust. And I’m beaming, filled with a sense of true gratitude. For that moment. For my daughter’s spirit. For my sister. And for the fifty years she’s been running behind my bike and encouraging me.
Good thing #1: Beckett learned to ride a bike.
Such a simple sentence to an outsider but so personal and so monumental to me.
After that, the list was easy. Well, not easy. But much easier. Each good thing on the list is a simple sentence that evokes an enormous emotional response that fills me with gratitude for one deeply personal reason or another. Not listed in order of importance because how does one assign an order of importance to these moments? You don’t rank gratitude.
I wrote and wrote and forgot about my glass of wine.
I found so many good things. From the fact that I found joy in cooking again to the day my 8 year old, Emerson, painted my jeans freehand and created a true work of art to my teenager’s 18th birthday. When I was done, I had more than ten. But more important than the number of good things on the list was how I felt.
I felt good.
I was joyful. I was sitting squarely in the good moments of my life as opposed to living in the worry and despair.
Gratitude changes you. It elevates your mood. That stress and emotional overload that can make you feel so tired and make your body so achy goes away. It reverses your outlook on the world. It changes how you treat people. More importantly, it changes how you treat yourself.
You can’t get busy hating yourself when you have to find things that matter to you to be grateful for. The two aren’t compatible. Gratitude doesn’t leave room for the negativity.
Nice trick, right?
And the thing is? If you work at it, that trick works every single time. Also, it results in things like you having better relationships and living longer. There are books and scientific studies on this. Go read them. I am just telling you from personal experience that when I started saying yes to gratitude, I was less willing to let other people treat me badly, less willing to treat myself badly. I have become a kinder person to myself and others, a more patient mother, a better sibling, a fuller human being on this planet.
And I take care of myself in ways I would never have imagined. I told you all, I started treating my body the way I would my job and began calling myself an athlete. And here’s a thing: I exercise more when I remember to feel gratitude for my health, for my muscles, for my healthy heart. For being alive.
Thinking of good things, finding things that I am grateful for is essential. Yes, I know it takes time. But you know what takes about the same amount of time? Complaining. So does whining and negativity. So does self-shaming. So does listing all the things that are wrong and not going your way, griping about all the reasons you can’t accomplish something, detailing all the excuses you have for not striving to be someone better than you were yesterday.
No one wants to be the person who drags herself and all the people around her down. The goal is to always be a person who is rising and lifting other people up along with us.
Gratitude can come to you in many forms. You can use different methods to think about your life and what is good and to embrace gratitude. Meditation. Long quiet walks. For some people, it’s yoga (not me, but I wish it was me). I find a lot of gratitude on my bike these days. (Side note: If you haven’t done it yet, you should take Robin’s very first Year of Yes cycling class on Peloton. The music is insane and Robin preaches a sermon that you will carry with you forever. Once again I will tell you: ain’t nobody paying me to talk Peloton, plus I have spent a lifetime trying hard to NEVER work out, so you know I am serious when I say I love it.)
After that first hard session of making my Ten Good Things list, I noticed that finding good things got easier and easier. The key is to make it a part of your normal life. I like to think of it as something I am practicing. A practice that is so regular that it’s like reaching for my toothbrush. I am not there yet. But I’m working on it. I need it. The people around me need me to have it.
I am practicing gratitude.
Gratitude works. That list of good things works. So turn off your phone. Get out your pen and paper. Ten Good Things. Don’t get up until you have all ten.
I am right here. Holding onto your bike. Encouraging and running until you are ready for me to let go. Tell me what happens. And please enjoy the ride.
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