Gratitude

The new year is here.  Between quarantining and some serious snow days, my holidays lacked most celebrations and festivities.  When the calendars moved into 2022, I was feeling empty and alone.  The new year was just another moment in time.  After a long walk and some quiet space, I was kind of tired of feeling sorry for myself.  In that moment, I knew what my New Years Resolution/Goal would be.  This year I am going to show gratitude more often.  I definitely won’t turn into a Peloton instructor, but I can share my gratitude with the people and things around me.  Because I am very grateful.  I am grateful for my friendships and relationships.  I am grateful for a business I love to work in.  I am grateful for the places I get to go.  I am grateful for the experiences I get to have.  Honestly, there isn’t much in my life that I can complain about.  Ok, fine, give me a girls night filled with charcuterie and champagne and I am sure I can come up with a few things. 

This year, I am hoping to sprinkle gratitude throughout the year and hopefully set in motion the habit of sharing gratitude to the people around me forever.  I am hoping to take time to really appreciate the relationships I have and help build them, even with face masks and social distancing.  These past two years, we have missed so many of our daily acts of gratitude.  We no longer high five at the end of every class.  We no longer share a bite of our favorite dessert or a sip of our cocktail with people sitting with us.  We don’t hug acquaintances when running into them at the grocery store.  We don’t shake hands with people we meet.  And that’s only the small stuff.  Think of all the weddings and birthday celebrations we’ve missed out on.  There are the late night dance parties and concerts we no longer experience.  Think of all the moments in time we would share our gratitude, through words, through affections and through our presence.  These past two years have taken a toll on us.  

Since this pandemic isn’t coming to an end anytime soon, I am ready to start bringing an end to my feelings of isolation and loneliness.  There is so much in our worlds that we take for granted.  Even if I don’t high five at the end of class, I still want to.  Even if I don’t bring the most brightly encouraging attitude, just know that when I put on Too Short or TechNine, I am really saying that you are bad ass.  When I say that we’ve got a finisher.  I am really saying that you work so hard everyday and I know you can do it, because you are an athlete.  When I laugh, it’s a true laugh.  When I say “give yourself a hug,” I really mean you deserve more than that, after some workouts you definitely deserve a gold star.  

This is going to be a year of greatness and strength.  We have seen the past two years pass us by with a blur of confusion and time.  This year, we know a little better where we are and hopefully a little more about what lies ahead.  We can start the year looking at all of the amazing people around us.  We can appreciate the unbelievable experiences we’ve had and the experiences that we will get to have.  As much as we are grateful for these relationships and people, we also need to be grateful for the person we are.  We need to be grateful for the person we bring to the table.  Because that person is pretty awesome too.  And that person deserves a piece of our gratitude.  We need to be able to enjoy our successes, our failures and all the pieces that make us who we are.    

Here is my gratitude for this post.  Almost every single day, I see my athletes push themselves past their comfort zones.  I see them show up in all sorts of moods, but bring the best attitudes through the door.  I write workouts that are going to be hard and these athletes make them look easy.  I tell them to go up in weight and they do it.  I tell them to squat deeper and they do it.  I tell them one more push up and I really meant two, and they grind out two.  I am grateful for a job I love to go to, but I am even more grateful that I get to be around people that make my days so full of joy and amusement.  I am grateful that I get to laugh every day and listen to whatever music I want.  So even though there are no high fives, we all deserve it.  Instead, I think we will drink champagne and eat chocolate.