On 301 days of gratitude

Yesterday I hit 300 days of posting my gratitude on Facebook. 300.

I started this quest the first of November 2013, when many of my Facebook friends were committed to 30 days during the month of November. I decided what the hell, I’ll bite.

On November 15, tragedy struck. A house fire took the man I had come to know as my father. The man that became a role model at a critical moment in my life. The man who loved and supported my mother. Just like that, he was gone.

At that moment, 15 days into the gratitude challenge, I could have (and considered) giving the gratitude challenge up. After all, nobody would have thought bad of me, considering what had just happened.

But, as the days unfolded following my dad’s death…I saw kindness all around me. Kindness in the people who came to my mom’s house and helped us sift through what was left. Kindness in the person at Red Cross who helped set mom up with a gift card and other items she needed. Kindness in The Salvation Army, who also helped us. Kindness in others who donated gift cards, food and money. Kindness in family, friends and coworkers.  Those became my thankfuls in the week following the fire.

When I returned home following the funeral, I decided to keep it going. And November folded into December, my original goal was to get to 100. 100 folded into 200 and yesterday I hit the 300 mark.

I will admit, there are days where I want nothing to do with this whole gratitude posting bit. Those days, I write down what I’d like to say, but I give myself the space to not post it. We all need a break. There have been weeks where I post an entire week’s worth in one sitting because, frankly, it’s hard to post every day about gratitude. It’s been a lot more challenging than I thought.

It’s not that I’m not grateful every day…sharing it is the hard part. I’m a pretty private person. By posting my gratitude I share a piece of my soul with my Facebook friends. That’s a really hard thing for me to do some days.

As I progress into the 300s, I’m sharing more. Going deeper into my gratitudes. Yet I still have days where I pull back. And I still will have days where I’m feeling more private and will hold back a bit.

To my Facebook friends, thank you for reading the last 300 days of my gratitude. What began as a challenge has become a way of life for me. One moment of every day I stop and ask myself what I’m grateful for. Sometimes it’s something funny. Sometimes I stop and be serious.

But I’m always grateful.