By Lee Ann Stevens
PROMPT—I am grateful for ...
I am grateful for my parents. Sane, steady, able to let go.
I am grateful for the body I was born in. Healthy. Attractive enough that I was never alone. Though I should have let myself be alone sooner because I would have learned faster the things I needed to learn in order to grow into a person who loved herself first.
I am grateful for the two husbands. The first an alcoholic who was (and is still) never to blame. A person with guilt and shame that haunts him to this day. He was the one I believed I'd be with forever. I left him when I was so caught up in him that I could no longer recognize my own feelings. We had two beautiful children who remain a major blessing in my life.
I am grateful for the second husband, the mistake I chose when I was still not back to myself and I was afraid of being alone and never being loved. He too was an alcoholic with his own brand of darkness. He tried to run me, but I learned from him how to stand my ground. To speak up for myself. When he killed himself, I felt relief for him, for us and the ways we could never work, for me. People said I wasn't sad enough, but most of them didn't know.
I am grateful for ways I turned to myself, at last, after his death. What did I need, I asked myself, that led to choosing those two men? How did I contribute to the relationships going bad? What did I want now?
I am grateful for the ways I learned to view and treat myself differently. To interrupt the negative thoughts. To have compassion for the person I was at each point in the past. To understand and forgive myself. How I treat myself today, and how I love myself, matters more than the details of my past relationships with two troubled men.
Today, at 70, I am grateful for my physical and mental health. I am grateful for my children and grandchildren, my friends, and my current partner. I continue to practice using my voice, speaking up about what I want and need. I continue to practice making decisions every day that most align with my values.
I am grateful for the life I've had, and am still having. I see the beauty in the ordinary details of each day. I am grateful for each day I wake up still alive, in an imperfect world, with people who are most worthy of my time, care, and attention. And that includes myself.
Lee Ann Stevens writes fiction and creative nonfiction. Publication credits include Straylight Literary Magazine, Good Old Days Magazine, the blog BoomSpeak, and Story Circle Network Journal and publications. She writes from Port St. Lucie, FL.
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