Gratitude Sunday - These are the paths I am walking along

I would like to be able to run. Run really like the wind blows, occasionally fast and then suddenly very slowly. But run, just run. I would like to dance, learn to dance without my legs just stopping to work. I would like to be able to work like other people do in my profession standing all day long easily, not having any problems with that. I would like to climb the stairs at my workplace without thinking will I make it upstairs, and I would like to be able to go to a supermarket after work and just walk through it, buy those things I need rather than those I can reach that time. It is always the farthest corner where the milk is and sometimes it is just too far. I would love to be able to play with our son easily, without having to say "mom can not do this or that right now", I would love to play football and other sports with him. I would like to sleep without pain and just would love to live without painkillers. I would like to be a thirtysomething woman without all these health issues.

But still

I am SO grateful I can walk, I can take small walks, some days even longer ones, feel the wind on my face and hear the quietness that only a forest can offer. I am grateful of music I can listen to and rythm I can feel and those occational steps I can dance with my broom while sweeping our deck at the backyard or in our livingroom sometimes. I am so grateful to have a job that I genuinely love. I have an opportunity to be invited in my students' lives, they plan the future and I have this priviledge to be a part of all that. I love the fact that I now have a classroom of my own and an office of my own at my workplace. I have started there in 2001 but only recently got my own classroom. It is upstairs but I can manage. My own classroom feels nice and cosy and I have decorated it with a few plants. It is not a beautiful space but then again it is so very beautiful because beautiful things happen there - young people get ideas, they learn and they share their days with me. And about shops, I actually love the fact that I can visit small shops where I can come across the same people almost every time and I do not have to walk half a mile to get what I want. I LOVE the fact that I have a sporty and beautiful little boy and I can watch him play. And I am grateful of this medicine I have. It really helps my life. I LOVE to be me, thirtysomething woman with my problems but also with ALL these blessings!

There are two sides to everything and I want to see my life through gratefulness. It is not always easy but I still think it is absolutely neccessary to try. I have been given so much to be grateful for!
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I really enjoy my visits in inspirational blogs. One of my favourites is Vibeke's A Butterfly in my hair and it was there where I found this idea of a Gratitude Sunday a while back. Vibeke wrote that she tries to join in on Gratitude Sunday with Taryn and all the others over at her blog Wooly Moss Roots. I am thankful for this lovely idea for Taryn and for Vibeke who brought this to my attention.

 I started listing things I am grateful for some weeks ago here in english (In finnish I have done that on and off for years in my diary). Those most important things in my life like my family and faith are the same as mentioned here. There are also lots of smaller but yet very important things I am grateful for today. Today I wanted to remember that there are two sides to everything even to those painful things in one's life.

Now I am going to knit a little and then have pancakes for breakfast :)
I hope you have a day full of inspiration. Happy Sunday!

- Anu