I've been struggling to write lately. Tomorrow is the soon-to-be-famous Address to the Director and I was thinking about writing on that but since I've been informed that the Stasi reads the blog, why tip my hand?
The old fallback for mental health bloggers and other pitchers of woo is to do 'the gratitude column.' Of course, that's akin to singing 'Climb Every Mountain' as their shoveling dirt in your grave, but whatever.
1. I am most grateful for my wife without whom, I would not be here today. Probably. Out of 7 billion mortals, I'm convinced she's the only one who not only gets me but can take living with me. Believe me, it isn't easy.
2. My hometown Cleveland Indians are one game away from winning their first World Series since 1948. As someone who attended their first Indians game as a 10 year old and skipped class in college to catch noon games, this is a big deal.
3. Despite an absolutely atrocious diet, for some reason, all the major organs, including the heart (!) are in pretty good shape. Yes, the liver has been battered but is better than it was three years ago. I have no idea why this is happening.
4. Even though it is rapidly filling with yarn and knitting accessories (caution to anyone marrying a knitter), I love my house and especially my basement sports bar/newseum. This is the only house I have lived in in my entire life that I feel totally comfortable in. It took awhile after the police raid to get back to a point of feeling somewhat secure, but that was not the house's fault.
5. I still like my Mustang. It was not a life-transforming machine, but then no one should count on a car to do that. It's still pretty sharp and fulfills a long-held dream from young adulthood to own one. And I figured, if mommy and daddy gave me one for my birthday in high school (as did happen) I probably would have crashed it anyway.
6. Coffee. I bought a new coffee machine yesterday and can taste the difference this morning. Thank whomever for coffee. How could we live without it?
7. Fall - my favorite time of year. After a particularly difficult getting-the-yard-ready-for-winter session yesterday, I sat for awhile and watched the wind whistle through the orange, red and green trees and felt a bit of childhood come back to me. Nothing like the feel and smell of fall. And when you get to be my age, you really have to stop and savor every one. You never know.
8. Friends - I still have some. They're mostly on the Internet. Some I haven't seen in awhile (since my high school reunion) and I hope they haven't given up on me. I know I'm a pill but I'd like to think I'm not really that bad a guy. At least my wife tells me so. I still have a friend in my home town - I don't get to see him and his wife very much anymore. Most of my IRL friends are my wife's friends and I don't get to see them much at all. And all the friends I lost, I still think about and wonder how they are doing.
9. Family -- not much left here. My two boys are really my pride and joy and even though I hardly ever see them, they know I love them with every Amazon delivery. Everyone else on my side is dead or not speaking to me because of long held grudges against my mother. My family, as it were, is my wife's family and I get the impression they think I'm a weirdo but they tolerate me the times I see them once a year.
10. The Cleveland Browns -- whenever I feel like the biggest loser on Earth, a pathetic waste of human space, a damaged, despised waste of potential, I think of the Browns and then I don't feel so bad.
Ah, hell, this is degenerating into 'gratitude with conditions,' so I'll stop it here. It's already a longer list than I thought it would be.
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