Today, I’m grateful for the Internet.  It was allowed me to uncover a wealth of information about my disease (and many other things too of course), and the web has also helped me to connect with others for support.

Admittedly, it was harder for me to locate gratitude today.  I’m in a bad mood.  I woke up sore from pushing it yesterday with my class (teaching) and work load, and driving in the rain here is definitely fear inducing.  I had to dig deep to find something to be grateful for because I was definitely not in the mindset.

That said, today I’m grateful for perspective.  This disease does a lot of things that piss me off and remove me from my natural peer group of twenty-somethings, but as a positive consequence of this illness I am able to understand and empathize with my elders.  Beyond having empathy for physical constraints that scare me about aging, I don’t have the superman complex associated with most people my age.  I understand circumstances that force uncomfortable decisions.  I relate to not being fully free to take big risks.  Perpsective is bittersweet.  But I’m grateful for it.

In advance of Turkey Day, I’ve seen many of my friends from the alternative healing community take up the torch of the Thanksgiving Challenge.  The challenge is about daily gratitude — participants find one thing a day to be grateful for until the big day of gluttonous overindulgence.

Here on Chronic Twenties the purpose couldn’t be more profound.  We blog a lot about diseases and our restrictions and the meds we’d rather not take, but we rarely have good cause (or remember) to blog about the positive.  It’s hard to see the good stuff at the moments when we’re reflecting on our disease — having an illness doesn’t exactly feel uplifting.

However, in light of the Thanksgiving Challenge, I’m going to post one thing a day I’m grateful for until the big feast. 

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Today, one week from Thanksgiving day, I’m grateful for my yoga mat.  It has been a vehicle for so much healing and positive change in my life.   Before, I was an unhappy junior staffer at a communications firm; now, I’m a smiling yoga teacher.  Who knew a piece of sticky, cushiony synthetic material could be so transformative?

What are you grateful for?