three year blogiversary!

me and my hot date

Three years ago I logged into my brand new Weebly account for the very first time to begin my blogging journey on The Grateful Life. It's been an awesome part of my life thus far and I am beyond thankful for you, my readers, for continuing to check in with me.

Folks often comment on how much they admire my grateful, positive outlook on life. Believe me when I say I love hearing those words as much as I love working on my gratitude practice--to these folks I say THANK YOU for helping to keep me inspired, motivated and in the learning process.

But there is something I want to admit today, on my 3 year blogiversary, that I have thought about many a time over my years of blogging....

Sometimes, I can be an ungrateful bitch.

*gasps from the crowd*

Before you close your browser and declare TGL a house of lies, I want to explain what I mean by sharing a little story. I present to you:

The True & Awful Story of How Trish Almost Ruined Van Morrison for Her Boyfriend

Van Morrison has been B's favorite artist for as long as he can remember. When we heard he would be coming through SF on tour I knew I had to find a way to take him. Thanks to the efforts of our wonderful friend Deva, I managed to buy (ahem, rather expensive) tickets to the sold out show as an early Christmas present. Major girlfriend points earned!

We counted down the days to the event; listening to our favorite songs over and over, discussing which tunes we most hoped to hear, and planning out our entire evening--from what outfits to wear to a celebratory drink spot beforehand to how we would share the story after.

To summarize: we were giddy with excitement.

But then the night of the concert arrived....

...and it was not exactly what we had expected.

And oh my...my oh my...did the ungrateful bitch come out in me.

To be blunt--Van performed like the pro that he is, sounding as great as anyone could have assumed--smooth, cool, effortless, and the perfect mix of blues and jazz.

But 98% of his show was focused on his new material, and the hits that we could all probably sing in our sleep...the whole reason why I bought the tickets...were almost altogether missing from the show.

With each passing new song, my anxiety began to rise. Why hasn't he played a classic yet? Doesn't he know how much money this audience paid to hear their childhood favorites? I swear to God if I don't hear a Brown Eyed Girl or a Moondance chord soon I'm gonna scream....

At one point my frustrations got so intense that, as I squirmed in my seat, I sang out altered lyrics to his request for audience participation. While Van crooned the word "Satisfied..." for us to repeat, I sang back "DIS-satisfied" not-so-under my breath...

...Ugh. I wish I were kidding and sort of wish I did not just admit that, but I was a woman quickly unraveling. All of my manifesting, perspective switching, good thoughts mustering powers had disappeared and left me itching for a hit of "Tupelo Honey" like you would not believe.

Meanwhile, B very much enjoyed the concert. He was a little disappointed not to hear more classics, too, (we heard 3 out of probably 20 songs that we knew) but he took an attitude of appreciation none the less. He was grateful to have been 9 rows away from his favorite musician, to experience some high quality music with me, and to at least have heard his favorite song "Into the Mystic" (which, I believe the Universe gave to us so as to keep me from actually having an aneurism...or throwing my shoe).

As we began to exit the auditorium after the final encore my sweet and gentle love put his arm around me and smilingly asked, "Did you like it?!"...to which my almost entirely unraveled self bluntly replied "NO."

...Double ugh. I really wish I were kidding.

After an almost silent ride home and a quick, unhappy conversation where I frantically outlined all the reasons I was so disappointed (with B gently trying to counter my negativity with positive thoughts) we went to bed in a sad little funk. By this point, I had not only worked myself into a tizzy of anger, but I had dragged B down the rabbit hole, too.

Minus all girlfriend points.

So here's why I share this story: Gratitude (along with love, acceptance and forgiveness) is a practice. Always has been, always will be. Life will continue to surprise you with unexpected twists that have the possibility to test you and maybe even occasionally disappoint you. So in order to avoid Morrison level melt downs, we've got to keep practicing. No one is perfect at it and that's OK--but we owe it to ourselves, our communities and our experiences to continue the process.

Several days (and a plethora of apologies) later, we've talked more about the show and have come to a place where I see it more through his initial, thankful eyes than mine.

Though I'm not quite ready to Moondance just yet...

(practice. practice. practice.)

love and light,

Trish

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