Recovery

What a week it’s been. I am grateful that the work week is coming to an end and that my last meeting was with like-minded folks discussing topics of community, vulnerability, and gratitude. My workplace has five values: Disruption, Execution, Collaboration, Integrity, and Inclusion. These are lofty values, but the miracle is that I see them being lived by people at every level in the company on a daily basis. I’m grateful for these values and the people who live by them in my workplace. ...

We lost my Uncle Danny yesterday and while it’s sad that he’s gone, I’m grateful that one of my earliest memories from childhood was him playing with me at the playground. He showed me how to do a “skin-the-cat” on the rings. I was perhaps 3 or 4 at the most. ...

Lately, for a variety of reasons, coming up with three things I’m grateful for has been a bit of a challenge. I was reading one of my books of reflections and I was reminded that life is what we make of it. Often, we must look for the light. That’s what this practice is all about. I’m grateful for the reminder. ...

I had a telemedicine appointment today to talk about the fact that I’ve been gritting my teeth so hard at night that I’m waking myself up. I am grateful for the technology that made it possible for me to get the care I needed safely from my own home. ...

In the past 24 hours, the news that several federal agencies had been compromised through a suspected supply chain breach of a network management vendor. I haven’t been as grateful as I am today to no longer be in operations in quite some time. At the same time I have a great deal of empathy and compassion for all those in operational roles and employees the firm and agencies that got breached because I know how hard they have been and will be working for the foreseeable future and just how stressful it is to respond to a breach. ...

Yesterday, I talked with my dear friend who had open heart surgery last week. It was wonderful to hear his voice and even better to hear that he would likely be discharged to day. I’m grateful for the success and healing and grateful to have him in my life. ...

I’ve been reading the news this morning and even after only a short 39 minutes I am feeling overwhelmed. I’m grateful for this daily gratitude practice which has really made a difference in my outlook in this difficult time by rewiring the neural pathways in my brain. ...

I am grateful for the thirty minutes I got to spend in the phone with my friend yesterday before his surgery. It was good to hear his voice, registering the calm acceptance of the situation in his voice, and to be able to offer him support. ...

Within the sport of cycling, a contingent of people seem to glorify suffering. This glorification of suffering stems from a toxic masculinity that pervades the sport. It is true that much has been done to welcome women to the sport, and it is also true that there are many seriously bad ass women in the sport, but by and large it is dominated by men. And they like to tell each other how much they suffer in the saddle. ...

I have loved boots as long as I can remember. I remember having rubber boots that buttoned around the front when I was very small, wearing sandwich bags over my feet to go out in the snow. When I was in second grade, after we moved to the sticks, I started asking for a pair of cowboy boots, and a insulated vest, because that’s what the kids who’s parents had farms wore to school. ...

We came here knowing that this trip would be different but it was more challenging than we expected. Prior to heading to NY for a week in the Catskills, all three of us had gotten COVID tests in order to conform with the current NY state guidelines. These guidelines stipulated that we could come to the state provided that we’d had a negative COVID test within three days of arrival and we would agreed to quarantine for three days upon arrival. We would be released from quarantine after getting another COVID test with negative results on the fourth day. In theory this sounded feasible. In practice we faced many hurdles. ...

Things are really hard right now. Every day, I feel overwhelmed. Like so many others, I’m navigating uncharted waters without so much as a compass. The uncertainty of the moment weighs heavily on my mind and the challenges we face as a family feel insurmountable. It’s a game of wack-a-mole. ...

I am grateful for the strength to make amends and ask for forgiveness, I wasn’t always good at recognizing when I was in the wrong in the past. I am grateful for the forgiveness others afford to me, it shows that I’ve made progress rebuilding trust with people I’ve hurt. I am grateful to be able to forgive others. Letting go of anger and resentment and forgiving others heals as much as or more than it heals others.

Have you ever been afraid for your life? Not just scared, but really concerned that you just might die — right here, right now. I have. It was a late summer evening and I was 15 years old. School had already started but the sun was still high enough in the sky that we could go out after eating dinner and cruise around town on our bikes — we ate early, 5:30 every day. My brother and I had ridden into town on our freestyle box bikes and met up with our friend Matt to go to Sheetz — Central PA and North Western MD’s incarnation of a 7-Eleven, except they didn’t have Slurpies. ...

I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy lately, in part because the tone of our nation borders on uncivil at best and out right bellicose at worst. Indeed, the tone of the nation is not uniform. There are pockets of civility, at the individual level, but by and large, the tone of our national conversation rears its ugly head by envisioning anyone who does not think or act in the manner that we do as the enemy. ...