Gratitude

The word GRATITUDE keeps coming up for me in abstract and diverse ways over the last year in just the moments I seem to need the reminder. Just this week once again it was spoken to me in regards to something I hadn’t thought about at all. 

I recently had to make the hard decision to officially close my photography business. When I got pregnant I merely set it aside with every intention of going back to it once I was physically able and time allowed. Not really sure who I was kidding there because it became very clear pretty quickly that there just isn’t any time right now in my life to also run a successful business. And here is the thing, that’s ok. It suited my life for so long but it doesn’t currently and that really is ok. But there is a grief that comes along with that. Along with letting go of something I worked so hard to build. Something I did on my own, something I was incredibly proud of, something that brought me immense joy. To just sign off from that for no other reason than lack of time seems unfair. It’s not really, such is life. There are always lots of moving parts but I still struggle with how to be ok with really being done with it after 12 years.

Here is where the word gratitude comes in. I was introduced to the idea that whenever we are looking at grieving something, we can take that negative feeling and look at it with a heart of gratitude. Hold my heart for a second because whoa. Sounds so simple and silly but when I really took just a few minutes to think about it I really have so much gratitude for my business. It allowed me to do something I love for years. It allowed me to travel a ton to spend time with friends and family and explore new places. But most importantly it got me here. Physically here, where I live now. If it wasn’t for my business I never would have moved up here. I would never have bought my house, I would probably still be in what I can now see was a toxic relationship that was never going to move forward. I wouldn’t have met my husband and I wouldn’t have my boys. So …sad my business is closed..sure but SO incredibly GRATIFUL for what it brought into my life. 

After a few days of thinking about grief from a place of gratitude, I realized this applies to more than one space in my life. As we head into TPR (termination of parental rights) in our current foster care case I have been filled with so many emotions. We had initially really thought and hoped this case was going to go to reunification. I spent a year building a really amazing relationship with mom in this case and was really looking forward to seeing him go home. But here we are with this case coming to an end and mom and I aren’t even in touch anymore. I knew there was a possibility he wouldn’t reunify but I thought when we got to this point that we would still have a relationship with mom. It might sound weird to some people but she became a friend. Someone I looked forward to seeing, someone whose company I enjoyed. Someone who I got to love on and support so now that she is not part of our lives I find myself grieving her presence for myself and my child. Insert GRATITUDE. I got to know a new person. I got a year of getting to know my kiddo's mom. I met her mom ( my child's maternal grandmother), her daughter (my child’s sister). I got to see her home, meet some of her friends, and hear some of her story. Not every foster parent gets that. I did. And I am so grateful. I’m grateful for what I will one day be able to tell him about his mom and his birth family. Grateful for the opportunity to walk beside someone during a really difficult time in their life. Grateful for the way the whole relationship humbled me.  And with that it’s hard to feel any sadness. Just gratitude for what was and is. 

When I gave birth to my son, one of my mantras that I used in labor was “gratitude is a frequency in my body”. It served me well in that space and I’m now seeing that it needs to stay with me in this current season of my life. I’ve always had a grateful heart but the shift that it can be more than a grateful heart and literally a frequency of which I carry into every part of my life I believe is going to be incredibly cathartic for me.