Deployment Journal - Day #10

During difficult times, I tend to cope by hyper-focusing on my blessings.  Sometimes excessively.  Here are five of my last seven Facebook statuses:

"... grateful for stairs. Such constant exercise."

"... grateful for kind neighbors, hot tea, working appliances, chicken soup, sweet potato sprouts, and the library."

"... grateful for true friends, steamed milk, manual labor, and a fresh haircut."

"... grateful for ice cream, and text messages, and remembering to put our trashcan out on the curb tonight."

"... grateful for full ink cartridges, freshly clipped fingernails, leftover food, and being barefooted."

I'm still trying to come up with tonight's pithy list.  Not feeling very grateful today, honestly.  But, the exercise of making myself find several unique blessings, even on the roughest days, never ceases to help me.

* * *

"Reflect upon your present blessings 

- of which every man has many - 

not upon your past misfortunes, 

of which all men have some." 

- Dickens