Grace and Gratitude

Pre-pandemic, it was often easy to forget to be thankful. Living in NYC and working in a gig industry, you're constantly on the go-go-go, trying to get ahead, to hustle, to make more. Nothing is ever enough. Like everyone else, the pandemic forced me to slow down. I went from three jobs to none. I couldn't organize and strategize and work my way out of the problem like I'm used to. I was facing significant career and housing changes if I didn't receive help. Hell, it was a time where I suddenly had to be the one asking for help instead of giving it. It makes you suddenly and humongously grateful for what you had.

We're now almost a year into the pandemic. I'm coming up on a year unemployed. I'm tremendously grateful for my family that has supported me and the new-found skill of having faith in the unknown and going with the flow. However, like all skills, it's something you have to continuously practice or else you'll forget it.

This past week I was overwhelmed. My writing project was large and difficult and I didn't have enough time. It was constantly snowing every day. It would turn from heavy snow to freezing rain to sleet to more snow so everything coming down was melting and refreezing, making it incredibly tedious and frustrating to remove. I spent four hours on Thursday attempting to clear a foot of ice and snow from the sidewalk and driveway, barely making any progress and finding myself angry that I was losing precious time on my writing project. I had come up with a week of content for Instagram that was suddenly lost and delayed in the mail. It wasn't fair!I had planned this week, it was going to be successful!

And then I was instantly ashamed. I'm so incredibly lucky to have a passion project right now to work on. So incredibly lucky to have a house over my head with heat and electricity while so many were suffering. Had I not just spent the past year learning to slow down and be grateful only in the face of small annoyances to revert back to a workaholic?

It's amazing how far you can come in a year and how far you still can go. But this past week was the perfect opportunity to practice what I've learned. I took a deep breathe and let it go. Grace goes hand in hand with gratitude just like in order to succeed, you have to fail. So I failed a little last week, and forgave myself. There's always tomorrow. And sure enough, after a night of forgiveness and relaxation, I managed to achieve my goals the next day without the added stress. My writing project was turned in on time and my packages eventually arrived. The world didn't end; in fact, the opposite. The sun came out and the snow began to melt.