- Gratitude towards gratitude itself, this was the first year I found what it is to be grateful, what it feels like, how much it heals. I may have never done that without a special gratitude challenge that I happened upon. I don’t believe in destiny for sure, but it felt like destiny. It felt like “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” No other article has ever changed my life that much, that is why it has to be my article of the year, looking back on it, it was a simple and straightforward post, but it helped me to bridge a gap that I had been waiting to cross all my life. Now most days I write a note about gratitude, one things that inspires me (🌞 1. INSPIRATION), one thing that inspires me about the way are happening in the present moment (⏰ 2. TIMING) and one thing that I’m grateful about some kind of human connection in my life (💞 3. CONNECTION). If I miss a day I don’t mind, but it has really changed my brain to be constantly connecting to positive things in my life as well as looking for unneeded things that could be dropped. Thank you to Nomzamo for the article as well as so many others, her blog is defiantly my blog of the year for 2019!
- My son being born, it really is less life changing than becoming grateful, for it affects me in all my moments with him, my relationship with my daughter, with my husband, the way I enjoy being alive, the way I think of myself as I try to establish an mental identity independent of my family. My son was born and from the first second brought me joy and has never stopped.
- My daughter being forgiving, I was really sick during my son’s pregnancy and really impatient and mean, it was the same me, but more concentrated, so it showed me all my flaws on steroids and now I can work on them, so in a way it was good to become aware of the problems and also that my daughter is forgiving enough that we can forge a new relationship now and in the future.
- My family being together, my husband and I have unresolved bitterness that prevents us from being a happy couple, but I am grateful we are a stable couple, that we are a becoming a supportive couple. The children really enjoy our family being a whole and it gives me hope that in the future there will still be something left to repair.
- For life, life is a struggle, it’s full of pain and happiness, more happiness than pain for me, but not a single day goes by without problems and massive compromise about how I would like to live my life. I wonder and don’t know if all family members have to constantly live with compromise about how to use resources, which person’s hobbies get priority, which person’s sleep schedule gets to mess up everyone else’s ext. But every breath is still sweet, every dawn beautiful, the sunshine and the rain equally magnificent to me.
- For not being a doctor, my daughter is four, if things had gone differently I would have started and finished medical school and would now be working as a doctor, I would be in debt from school, but with earning power to pay it. But I think I would not have one or both of my children and no price on Earth would have been worth not having them or not having the time to love and protect them. For some people career is their baby, for me, my babies are my babies. I really want an identity separate from them, but not because I don’t treasure them, just because that is the road to sanity for me, to be mentally separate, to have aspirations that I own and pursue not ones I push onto them to own and peruse.
- For not having my mother in my life. It’s great that my real mother is not in my life. I would have had to explain drug addiction, pedophilia, bipolar disorder to my daughter already, she may have been hit or choked by her grandmother already before we knew it would be a problem. I would have felt less empowered to make changes, I would have spent a lot of time feeling angry about the past instead of just living in the present. I’m glad for reconciliation where it is healthy, but I’m even more glad for separation where it is not.
- For debt, having debt has shown me money is not everything. These have been the happiest years of my life and the poorest as well. I don’t plan to intentionally not save if I can, but the myth of money bringing happiness has been completely and utterly shattered for me this year. I’ve been hammering away at it, but now it’s gone. Money isn’t power, it can be used to buy things, change things, but it can also exist without changing anything. A lot of times money simply stays in the bank and doesn’t even reduce the fear of not having enough money later, because all money can be lost, any bank can close, any government insuring a bank can itself fall, nothing is certain about money. It can be a great tool, but it is the worst master I know.
- For safety, there are so many things I don’t love about my country, but it is fairly safe and safety feels great. It’s funny that many people who live here don’t feel safe, and of course it’s not completely safe, but it’s very safe compared to most the world. It is interesting that it’s 49th out of 160 on Safe Around Rankings (we are way less safe than Japan that doesn’t have guns and a bit more than China where people will give you drugs and steal your kidneys) which seems right to me vs 118 out of 163 in the Global Peace Index (which seems to count how people feel more). There is a vibe that a lot of people feel afraid, though I am not one, I notice it. In Mexico a lot of killing is happening, my husband’s family is from there and goes back a lot, people are frequently being decapitated. Overall the safety here is fair, no matter how you scale it or spin it, it’s just obvious many countries are safer, yet there is not constant non-stop violence either. I’m grateful for the amount of safety we have, it’s not that nothing could ever happen, but incidents are spaced out in our average life spans.
- For the truth, there are people who lie, information that is wrong, but the truth is the same from all angles, the truth helps heal disease, the truth is slow and doesn’t magically cure injustice, but it allows a discussion, it beings a journey, it rings true in the heart, it changes you over time like a river carves a canyon through rock. The truth makes writing worth it, learning worth it, it makes the pain of being wrong worth it.
bubblegummonkey.com 
All the best for 2020. Thank you for your kind words, always. Thank you for your open and teachable heart and spirit. May you be followed by goodness and grace this year. Love and light ✨
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aww..your daughter sounds lovely…always good to read your words..happy 2020:)
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btw #7 was pretty disturbing…pedophilia? grandmother chocking your daughter? whoa…
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Real life is so messy, the more people I talk to the more I find that beyond just the news children who grow up unmolested are somewhat lucky and privileged, it’s not just a given that your family will respect your body or mind, sadly. I’m happy that it seems to be changing, when I was a child it was about 1/3 children in the U.S. getting abused at home, now it’s estimated 1/6, but it sure doesn’t seem like something you hear about from 1/3 or 1/6 people and that’s why I talk about it, not to shame my mother, if she ever reads this, but to make it more of a thing that everyone can consider talking about, as something to warn children about, something to help victims, I would hope a talking space can exist everywhere, without shame, so that victims can always own that part of their story without checking if they have permission to do so, yet on the other hand it’s such a joy kill and difficult to discuss with your kids, so I experience both sides at once, wanting to talk openly and also feeling the difficulty of doing so. 🕊️
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i understand, i guess it was just unexpected as i read along. We do hear about it so much in the news but i guess not so much within the confines of our own families, even if it exists. Good for you breaking that barrier. I believe it is a worthy goal.We all need space for deep rooted issues and worries to come to light, be heard, and worked out. I admire your courage. i have a difficult time, strangely,discussing anything of that nature as it relates to myself directly but have been trying to work on that . hugs!
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*choking
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The grace of God is sufficient for you and your family.Happy New Year
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