Feeling Grateful after a Stressful Year – and Try to Catch the Magic

It’s hard work trying to be aware of the tiny magic around us all the time. Right now, it’s cranberry meringue pies in the oven and MST3K’s “Santa Conquers the Martians” on television. My cat upside down on my stack of books, tamales in the fridge for tomorrow.

This time of year can be stressful. I tend to want everything to be peaceful, perfect, easy. But at least one or two things can trip us up. Today was sunshiney, very strange for December in Seattle, I ran outside with wet hair and just stood in a cold sunbeam for five minutes.

I was talking to my little brother in Thailand on the phone late tonight and was telling him about my year, and realized though I had really felt terrible for much of this last year, my perception was that I was stressed and sick, that a lot of good things had happened, I just had never slowed down long enough to count my blessings, or I was so distracted by the bad/things that went wrong that I just missed the magic completely.

But I have a lot to be grateful for this December. Not just reconnecting with family and friends (though I love that holiday getting-back-in-touch squishiness) or presents in the mail. Even in the last couple of days – this morning I learned my newest manuscript, with poems about the end of the world and sciency stuff, is a finalist in a book contest, that New Binary Press released Unexplained Fevers as a PDF e-book especially for the holidays, and Two Sylvias Press just sent me the pdf proof of the re-issue print version of She Returns to the Floating World (which will be available soon – we’re just putting on the finishing touches!) The feeling of relief after months of testing I had with the hotshot neurologist told me he was 99.9 percent sure I didn’t have MS even if I did have some weird neuro stuff we could treat, when the immunologist said “You’re doing so much better, we can delay (X experimental immunological treatment.)” All my brothers are employed in jobs they like, my parents are feeling happier than I’ve seen them in a long time, and I’m going to try to rediscover my own joy. In writing, in my friendships and marriage, in work – I want to do more of what I love and worry less. Literally, my only 2014 resolutions are to stress myself out less (usually whatever I’m worried about is less catastrophic than I thought,) to be kinder to my body (rest when I need to rest, otherwise my immune system will force the issue, so…that’s a lesson I keep relearning) and to look out for the magic that’s constantly around, instead of focusing on the mess.

Merry Merry Magic!