Gratefulness Without Measure

     I know, I know. It's a subject that plays in my brain and heart over and over again in droves. I pass off the constant feelings of gratefulness to advancing age, but you know, when I think back, I have always had an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness, both for large and small things.

    What is gratefulness? Is it love unbridled, like a runaway horse? Is it guilt in small, tiny vials marked poison, which we drink and then, right before we close our eyes, we feel? Is it faith in something larger, universal, which grabs our gut and clenches it tight, wrenching out tears from the eyes and piety from the soul?

    I have no answers as to why some people are more prone to gratefulness than others. There are those who go about their daily lives, working and striving to create comfortable places to exist and purchase objects to improve their status or lifestyle, who appear to have a very low percentage of gratefulness. They use life to their advantage, and only to their advantage, and never take precious seconds out of their 24-hour time slots to be truly grateful for their sheer ability to be where they are in life. I've met those who are down on their luck, always complaining, always envious of the people mentioned above, who carry rot in their soul for not being in the upper echelon, as if life threw them dark clouds from birth,

    I have also met those who attribute their good fortunes to religious faith, faith in a creator-being who pats them on the head like little lap-dogs when they attend churches or prayer meetings, and who believe that the only reason they are blessed is because they follow their master without question. Don't get me wrong: I attended church (Episcopal) since I was a small child, and I've read the King James bible from cover to cover. I'm not writing this to diminish the power of faith. I'm writing this to ask you, in short, to examine your own gratefulness, or lack thereof.

    I have never felt, personally, that I have created my life alone. Every step along the way, from a mother and father who believed in my talent so much that they were willing to mortgage their home to send me to Parsons in New York City so that I could further my art. A mother and father who, for whatever reason, let me run wild for most of my youth, to explore my own boundaries and to forge my own belief system in all things. Both of my sisters have been supportive of me in their own ways throughout the years, both emotionally and financially, and I have had partners in life and marriage that have taught me lessons, schooling me in the emotional realms of love, pain, loss and grief.

    Through it all, I have felt grateful. I express it in countless spoken and written words, and mean it sincerely. I have been given so much, and feel as though I have not returned it to those who have offered it. My life bloomed rapidly, like a flower with countless petals, and now, as the petals are starting to fall away, I feel even more gratefulness than ever. We are not meant to constantly bow our heads, to meekly retort our thank you's over and over again, to attribute all of our life's achievements to others. But, we are meant to step outside of our own egos and realize, in no uncertain terms, that we are not the sole creators of our lives. We are meant to recognize that we have helped to build our lives with the stones and pebbles others have given us. We are meant to be introspective of how we became ourselves.

    Some of the physical objects or financial gains we have acquired, the emotional pain or pleasure we have received, the places we have traveled to or lived in – all of these are those stones and pebbles that have made up our foundations. Be grateful.