Standing on the Bridge of Ungratefulness

It isn’t a promising notion, but it is my reality. I get really, I mean really angry at life. I don’t have much patience for even the slightest shifts in my world. I decided, unwittingly, if not unconsciously about six and a half years ago that most moving parts of everything around me can and often fail to live up to what my mind thinks they should be. I am not, at least in my opinion, a self-righteous person with ideals of superiority, however, I do feel like we could all be doing more. From the weather to the leaders, to our next door neighbors and family.

Here’s where I feel compelled to justify my words and my self righteous comment that I don’t feel any superiority over the weather or other humans. I don’t hold myself above the comment that we should all be doing more, if anything, I would call myself the leader, the constable, the king (queen) of the ‘we should be doing more movement.’ More simply put, I need to put my actions in my feet not just in my mouth.

I stand on the bridge of ungratefulness because I have shut down. As you can imagine, I really struggled with social media in November. It seemed that in November, every person on the planet was grateful for something. Grateful for things that just a day or 4 weeks ago they were busy quoting “I hate my life” songs and filling my wall with ugly emoji’s or the sky is falling meme’s. One might say that it’s great that we can, if only for a moment, a day, a month (pretend) that we are grateful for something, for anything, or universe beware, everything. But remember, I am shut down.

I have heard it said that the first step to anywhere is knowing that you need to take a step. I agree with that and the words also make me mad. I’m not really sure what I expected after 2 of my children were taken from me. Many years too soon, 2 of my 4 beautiful children, beautiful inside and out, were snatched up in the deadliest 10th of a second I have ever known. A 10th of a second, that’s what it’s been calculated to be, the difference between (possibly severe) injury and death.

Don’t be sad for me, don’t cry for me and please don’t pity me. I am not alone, where I sit in the death of children, there is a club, bigger than you’d like to imagine. A club, perhaps the only one, or one of few that swear every second of every day that we won’t allow any new members. Every moment of every day, we fail. We fail to limit the numbers of parents that bury their children. I am shut down.

I stand on the bridge of ungratefulness because of where I have been. I know that there are plenty of things, people (littles), adventures and well, life to be grateful for and maybe its not that I am not grateful. I may and possibly concede, that I am indeed grateful. Perhaps when the bed is made and the tide rolls out that I am grateful for all that I have today, but angry while I stand on the bridge of ungratefulness because I am, grateful.

{I currently have 2 biological children, 2 stepchildren, 5 littles, a cache of loyal friends, 2 cats, 1 (20-year-old) dog, and a cook’s dream kitchen. I have soared in a hot air balloon in Turkey, stood in the Parthenon in Athens, have eaten pizza in Vatican City, stayed at a spa in Tuscany, swam with the Plankton in the Aegean, kayaked off the coast of Maine, have seen a thousand year old tree in Germany, ridden a train in the south of France, climbed the stairs of the Eiffel Tower, swam in Swan Lake, had fish and chips in London, watched the sunset in the Cinque Terra, eaten a bottomless bucket of popcorn while watching really good and shitty movies, walked the halls of the Neuschwanstein Castle, ridden an airboat in Iowa, eaten the worlds best wood-fired pizza in Louisville, KY, thrown beads from a Mardi Gras float (I belong to the Krewe of Cleopatra in New Orleans) found inner peace in a labyrinth at the YMCA in Estes Park, CO, and have seen and done so much more.}