Choosing Gratitude

It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I express my gratitude for another day to spend with my girls. Grateful for the opportunity to make more memories that will hopefully turn into epic stories, they tell their children, the same way I tell them the stories about mine with Abuela. Our Thelma and Lousie moments of being serenaded at a folk festival by a group of musicians from Spain, being seated at a reserved VIP table at a jazz club, driving to and from Florida with her husband that had Alzheimer's. Who thought he was being kidnapped and tried to jump out of the car in the middle of a busy highway.  No matter what was happening or had happened, they were all life lessons.

Lessons that taught me to look for the silver lining because each experience contains wisdom, sometimes its the most minuscule of wisdom dressed in stupidity but it could be life-changing. These lessons also taught me that life has a way of working itself out regardless of what you do because what is meant for you will never pass you by and what is not meant for you, will not stay either. Much like the flowers that decided to sprout in this tiny flower pot. Not caring about the flower pot's capacity to hold them, they grew trusting that it would.

It is all about perspective, if you look for the bad then that is what you will see because that is what you're looking for. That's why I choose gratitude because I don't want to take anything for granted. Even the 7 deer flies and 3 carpenter bees I had to kill the other day because, with each kill, my aim only got better.  

There is so much joy and beauty in the smallest of details, being grateful helps me see them.

Like finding the initial of my grandmother's first name sitting on top of a tray of fries, 

driving behind a truck with 2 sets of the number 66,

watching a glorious sunrise paint the clouds, 

noticing a rubber band shaped into a heart on the ground, 

hanging out with a dragonfly,  

finding this last bouquet of flowers in the store,

and watching the moon rise against an ombre night sky.

I am grateful for every single thing and especially the hard times because the toughest steel is forged in the hottest fire. 

That the energy I put out will always make it's way back to me one way or another, 

and choosing gratitude will only attract more things to be grateful for.