A Grateful Heart

One of the best parts of quitting drinking was learning to be grateful. The victim mentality that most alcoholics have was such a drag and I was the queen. It might boil down to the old misery loves company cliché for some people. Personally, I was just so mad at the world and people in general, I didn’t really even care if anyone wanted to ride the pity train with me. I didn’t need people; gin and whisky were my friends.

Bleh. What selfish way to live. I spent a lot of time being a jerk, but I did manage to learn one lesson from a Nebraska friend, OmaLaw. OmaLaw was one of the coolest, smartest women I’d ever met and she was the type who’d packed a lot of living into the first 20 years of her life, some of it courtesy of her family situation and some of it due to a healthy bit of feminist rebellion flowing through her veins. She had a great ear, a kind heart, and I am thankful to call her friend. She was the type who would hold your hair back when you puked. One time she sat with me in a theater after a movie really got to me and I just cried and cried and cried. She didn’t need to say a word. While careers, babies, and life in general might seem to have diminished our friendship, she planted the seed for my grateful heart.

I was having another bad day, which was pretty much everyday back then and I enlisted OmaLaw for another therapy session. It may have been drinks at the gay bar or a capp at the coffeehouse, the details escape me. After I complained about whatever was bugging me, she asked if I was ever happy. Now that was the question. Of course I got a little defensive, of course I was happy sometimes. I was happy when I could ride my bike. I was happy when I was partying (ha). On and on. But she stopped me and said, “The next time you are happy, write a list of all the things that you love. Then when you’re sad, you can read the list and you’ll feel better.”

Smart lady, right? I have been making those lists ever since. The frequency of the lists doesn’t really matter much to me anymore. I just like finding one here and there in a notebook, checking the date, and realizing that with all the ridiculousness and insanity in the world, there is still love, beauty, and humor to be found all around us.

Here’s a recent list:

Phone calls with my dad
Watching the bitches play
Man Friend
The sound of a basketball swishing through the net
How my mom says, “And stuff,” eighty times a day
Coffee with hazelnut creamer
Sushi
Watching “Jeopardy” or “Cash Cab” with Chef Boy
The painting DJ Extra Chromosome gave me
Getting a pedicure
Making one of my tables laugh
Laughing like a monkey
Warm enough weather to go running with Al and Jo
Queen and Al Green
Tattoos
Knowing that words and actions only have the power I give them
AMC’S Week of Oscar movies
When the bitches snuggle in for the evening and sigh in their sleep
Doctor Kracker crackers
iPod karaoke
Bob Dylan
Yoga pants

I hope I would make the bitches’ lists… Me, kibble, walks, treats, outside, Man Friend, drinks, kibble, Uncle Chef Boy, and probably more outside. My lists change with my moods and the seasons, I’m sure they would be steadfast in their devotion to their lists. As long as it comes from a grateful heart, human or canine, it doesn’t matter.