Silver Linings

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday, and I have a bad cold.

I wish I didn’t.

It’s disrupting my plans to gather with family, to cook and laugh and share time together.

But there it is. I have it now and can’t make it go away any faster by complaining or getting upset.

I haven’t had a cold for almost three years now, ever since we started masking up for Covid, so that is one silver lining to celebrate. And I am very grateful indeed to have gone all this time without a single cold or flu, stomach ache or sore throat.

When I was talking about it on the phone with my daughter earlier today, she helped inspire me in the spirit of the holiday and just for my own wellbeing to find a few other things to be grateful for.

So I’m grateful that while I’m down with this cold, I can take time to sit by the fire with my husband, Cal; that he’s willing to go to the store for me and pick up my favorite throat lozenges; that my daughter is a generous (and good) cook and will bring us a delicious meal; that I can binge watch a favorite show; that I have a stack of good books to read; that I know that this too shall pass. 

The Buddha is credited with saying, “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful."

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and I hope you will look for and find many silver linings. 

Happy Failing Forward,

Anne

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