New Year’s Musings

Despite the horrible stuff going on in the world, I try, on a daily basis, to keep my spirit and generally upbeat take on life, intact.  These days it is not easy.  This morning I woke up thinking about the online video of the murder of a black man selling ‘loose-y’s in Staten Island; Michael Brown’s body left in the street for four hours; cops turning their backs on the mayor of NYC; two cops being shot while sitting in their car in the same city; the continuing disregard for black lives in this country; the narrative about the beginnings of this country that disregards the rather significant fact that people were already living in these United States and that white Europeans did not ‘discover’ it; the 1% who don’t seem to care about anything other than protecting themselves and their booty; and the 99% who persevere and protest.  I pulled the blankets up around my neck and lay there feeling despair.  Then I made a conscious effort to focus on the touch of my partner, and the warmth of his hand upon my back in the middle of the night; the love of my friends, some long-term and others more recent; the love of my mother throughout my childhood; my caring daughters who are supportive of one another, having chosen to live in the same city on the same block; the relationship I have with each of them as adults, and all we share about our lives with one another; the voices of each of my grandsons, saying ‘Grandma’ with excitement about something they want to share with me; my Al-Anon friends and all that I have learned in those meeting rooms over almost twenty years – the list goes on, and that is the point. I lift myself up by concentrating on all the blessings in my life.  I am not being maudlin:  these things  sustain me on a daily basis. Lastly, I remind myself that everything in my life is directly related to the choices I have made over the years, the mistakes I have acknowledged  and the correct choices that continue to come because of my honesty with myself and others.  All in all, life is good.