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A baby with the word grateful written on top

Last year for the first time I chose a word of the year. I didn’t make any New Year Resolutions. I didn’t focus on specific tasks for the year but rather embodied a word for the entire year.

It was a new concept for me. It was refreshing, and almost freeing. I felt like I could focous for once! One thing to focous on. I could do this. The word was balance, and oh how I needed it last year.

Last year…
I was recovering from yet another miscarriage.
I was pregnant for the third time.
I threw up 6 times a day (I wish I was exaggerating) for 5 months straight, my most prominent pregnancy symptom.
I was trying to fit in with a new team at work.
I gave birth.
I didn’t workout for a good portion of the year.
I started seeing a pelvic physiotherapist and chiropractor to help with the changes and pain my body was in post and pre pregnancy.
Bounced back after pregnancy and then ate so many cookies I put on extra weight.

Overall, balance was very much needed. Balance saved me from being critical of myself.

This year when thinking about a word for the year, I struggled for some time. It felt like the word I wanted to pick was a good one but there was a part of me that felt like it wasn’t the right year for it. Not yet, not now, something inside me said. Nothing else jumped out at me.

It was New Year’s Eve, about half an hour before we would be kissing and cheering for the beginning of a new calendar when it just came to me. Maybe because it was the end of the year and I was reflecting, or because I held Eli close to me as I swayed to music on the couch, eyes closed, taking in his scent. In that moment there was only one thing I felt, and it was grateful.

Grateful. I was overwhelmingly grateful. I have read much on gratefulness. On what being grateful every day can do for your mood, your joy, your life. It’s one of those things that I practiced before. But, how could my life and happiness be affected if i spent an entire year really embodying the word? How could I grow? I’m going to find out, because this year, I choose to be:

Grateful

Adjective / [greyt-fuhl]

  1. warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful: I am grateful to you for your help.
  2. expressing or actuated by gratitude: a grateful letter.
  3. pleasing to the mind or senses; agreeable or welcome; refreshing: a grateful breeze.

I leave you with an excerpt from my journal. In it, I looked to the end of 2019 and described the woman I am then.

She is glowing and overjoyed as she looks upon her family. Her heart fills with love and she is grateful for all that has happened in her life to allow her to live in this precise moment.

Love,
Mariangelica

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gratefulness at christmas

This Christmas I am feeling that grateful vibe that always comes with the holidays. We hosted Christmas for the first time at our place and what a blessing it was to have everyone there to wait until midnight on Christmas Eve and dish out presents and hugs.

This holiday I am deeply grateful for:

My husband, for the incredible man he is. For how caring, thoughtful and respectful he is, and for all the love he shows me in everything he does for our family.

My parents and siblings. For their support, their love and their health and successes this year and for all they were able to achieve!

For Congo and all his unconditional love. My little fur ball.

For my closest girlfriends who continue to be true confidants.

For my career and how it has flourished this past year. For all the responsibilities I am being trusted with.

For my health and my drive to improve on it.

For a stable home, and financial responsibility.

For my extended family and all they teach me every day.

This Christmas I feel grateful and I hope you do too. Bad things happened this year. Things that made me cry my heart out and feel so broken and lost I didn’t know how to come back from it. But I’m choosing to make those experiences ones that will shape me in positive ways. At the end of the day, we are alive, and that makes a difference in this world. We are here for a purpose, find it, and work towards that thing that fills your heart. I hope this Christmas you feel loved and cared for, and if you don’t feel it, I send you a giant internet hug, because everyone should feel loved.

Much love, always and Merry Christmas,

Mariangelica

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