Thanks for Nothing

This Thanksgiving weekend, I am grateful for the impermanent nature of reality.

Didn’t see that coming, did you? Neither did I. Looking back through the blog log, I haven’t always posted about Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, and I was disinclined to write about it this year, too. After all 2018 has put me through, gratitude, despite being the fundamental concept of my path to happiness, has been hard to come by.

Which doesn’t explain why I felt compelled to write about it anyway. I resisted at first, stubbornly loyal to my sentiment that life has sucked since last spring. True, I have seen glimmers of light in the overarching darkness—I can’t not see them, given my equally stubborn loyalty to understanding contrast—but how blatantly cock-eyed does this optimist want to be? As a cherished colleague recently observed, “ ‘Committed’ has two meanings.”

My gratitude list always starts with Ter. She’s the rock in my life. Batman to my Robin. The yin to my yang. My cool inspector, armchair therapist, sounding board, heavy lifter and nutrition coach. From her, one thing leads to another and my list gets longer almost by itself. Family, friends, co-workers, abundance, prosperity, health, creativity, yaddayaddayadda ...

Though I remain deeply grateful for everything on it, today that list feels more like a rote recitation than a genuine expression of thanks. So when my little voice urged me to write something specifically for Thanksgiving, my first response was, Forget it; I’ve got nothing new to say.

Nothing new? Really? Maybe you should ponder that more closely, Ru.

So I did. I gave it some serious consideration, and this is what I came up with:

I am grateful for the impermanent nature of reality. To be clear, of this reality.

Everything in this 3-D world is temporary. Everything. Our homes, our jobs, our money, our families, even our compostable containers—everything we think we own can be gone in a heartbeat. Be it by fire, flood, divorce, disease, crooked accountants, you name it, there are no guarantees. None. Zero, zip, zilch. And you know what? There aren’t meant to be. It’s strangely liberating to realize that no matter what happens, you can overcome it. You may not think you can (alas, too many people don’t), but humans are resilient, resourceful, and more adaptable than they’re taught to believe.

Coincidentally, even as our possessions are temporary, so are the less tangible things. Like heartache. Like grief. Like sorrow. Even happiness is fleeting, so best to embrace it while it’s here. This very moment is already over, never to return, and don’t look back at it else you’ll miss the one you’re in and the next one will be in your face before you’re ready. It might be the most joyous moment in living memory, or it might bring physical pain like you’ve never imagined. Whatever it brings, the moment and everything in it will surely pass. It has to. While time is relative, it’s also perpetually in motion. We’re always moving forward, back to where we came from, where the only thing that does matter, the only thing that does last forever, is love.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. I admit, Spirit Ru has not liked the human part of this gig one whit of late, but everything I have endured, everything I have lost (or thought I’ve lost), has brought me to the point where I can honestly say how grateful I am that nothing here is permanent. Live the moment. Good, bad or indifferent, it will not last forever—and in the end, the one thing we take with us is the one thing we brought when we were born:

Ourselves.

With love (and gratitude),