November 30, 2024

I am thankful for…

1. Smooth airport trips. I feel fairly lucky that most of my visits contain minimal bumps- though a checked bag was lost for the first time in over a decade earlier this summer. I’m thankful that it doesn’t cause me major stress or anxiety to just go to the airport. I’m thankful that I’m able to “enjoy myself” and relax while traveling for fun vs works.

2. Different traditions for different holidays. I am grateful that I have some holidays with a giant extended family of 75+ people and other holidays with no more than six humans. It’s nice to have varying perspectives on holidays, and to not have tunnel vision of one type of family or one method of celebration. It hasn’t always been like this for me, so it’s been nice to have an opportunity to grow in my understanding for how people come together for rituals.

3. Time to catch my breath and reflect at the bigger picture. I’m always reflecting and thinking about my thinking, but activities like journaling, making playlists, selecting photos to print, and crafting newsletters always make me look back on the themes and chapters more that the sentences. When given a bigger gift of time, I can sometimes see the books, or even a trilogy (2013 -2016 from Chicago classroom to Silicon Valley, and back to the burbs).

When I think about all the fast media we are able to consume - the videos and posts (multiple times a day) from millions of people - I often think it’s too much content, too much information, too much data. While I love having access to over 35,000 photographs, it’s a lot to manage for an amateur photographer who has other things to do. Would I be better with 3500? Wouldn’t it be actually MORE authentic to have less takes and to capture an actual real moment? I’m thankful for the few days a year when I have time to pause, reflect, and distill my own personal data and experiences.

If you’re new here

I decided to challenge myself to publish my personal writing more, starting January 2024. From pausing to deliberately reflect to getting more disciplined about creating for myself, I jumped into this goal. For a little more on this journey, check out my first public Gratitude Journal entry.