This Christmas, I’m Grateful for MY BLESSINGS

I was laid off from Rogers TV two weeks before Christmas. I immediately wrote a post about how much life sucked, called ‘The Worst Day of My Life’. It outlined my pain at losing my job, my wooziness about an ex who had found a new girlfriend, and my frustration over the water shut-off in my building. The piece ended with a melodramatic hint that I might jump off my balcony were it not rude to inconvenience friends and family with my demise this close to the holidays. I didn’t post it on my blog because some intellect shone through my self pity and told me it’s not cool to bitch and moan when there’s people with real problems out there.

Even my mom, who is battling breast cancer, stops to remind herself that she’s lucky. Two years ago, the chemo wiped out her hair, made her toenails fall off, and killed her immune system so badly she was sent to the hospital and put into enforced isolation. Now she’s trying a ‘long-term’ chemo that causes her feet to spontaneously blister to the point where walking is painful, it makes her forget things and — worst of all — she’s on an emotional rollercoaster of anger, self-pity, fear, and then…gratitude.

“Thank God I’m not in a wheelchair,” she said on the phone last night. “Thanks for not giving me spina bifida. Thanks for sparing me the hassle of injecting myself with insulin every day. Thanks for North American healthcare, which saved me from measles when I was 10 and saved our lives in childbirth.”

I’m grateful too. I’m grateful we survived the C-section. I’m grateful Mom didn’t die when I was 12 — around the time she was first diagnosed. I was only a child then, and thank the universe I’ve been given the gift of knowing her as an adult. Things could be phenomenally worse for most of us…being laid off from my first career-job is really just a mild inconvenience until I find a better one. It’s probably a blessing in disguise, and so I’m grateful for that too.

This Christmas I said thanks for my excellent family and friends, my financial privileges, my health, the healthcare system (slow and bureaucratic, though it may be), my fine physical assets (especially my straight teeth and my educated brain), my artistic talents, my peaceful surroundings, my freedom to choose anything I want (including the choice to NOT wallow in my own bullshit.)

Have an honest and happy New Year!

Dedicated to Mom