Some Thoughts On Pretend Gratitude

Pollyanna Positivity, and Choosing Instead to be Rooted in What is Real

It’s 9:09 PM and here I sit carefully deconstructing an extra pillow sham so I can re-cover the wood-carved footstool my Dad made 30 years ago.

The upholstery is currently the essence of fine 1990s floral tapestry.

I’ve considered leaving it as an ode to shoulder pads, hunter green, and Full House.

But instead, I’m updating it to something more cottage-like. I like to think… then, it becomes a collaboration that spans decades between my Dad and I.

My embroidery book and newly organized threads are stationed ready to be deployed into neat lines and clever loops to embellish the sham cover.

Because keeping it simple is not in my wheelhouse. And apparently, perfecting new cozy art forms is one of my more prolific coping mechanisms.

It’s been a wild day or two around here so this is coming out much later than I planned on Thanksgiving Eve.

Photo by Alfred Schrock on Unsplash

You Don’t Have to Play the Glad Game

I’m showing up in your inbox to remind you that you don’t have to make gratitude a game.

You don’t have to go around the table and say 2.48 things you are grateful for.

You can start a new tradition.

Say 1 line of a current favorite song. Share 2 things that make you hopeful. Tell a story about a kindness that impacted you. Or just have a 2nd helping of stuffing. (I’m definitely doing that one.)

I know a little bit about pretend gratitude.

Here’s some context for this story. The doctors told my folks I’d likely die minutes after I showed up a month early missing a whole host of important things.

I had 23 surgeries by the time I was 13. I grew up in hospital rooms, doctor's offices, and a home life marked by cycles of alcoholism and abuse.

(And yet there were beautiful moments too. One doesn’t cancel the other. Many things can be true at the same time.)

Two movies were practically seared on my soul growing up we watched them so frequently.

The first was Sound of Music. I dreamt happily of being a nun who twirled on mountain tops singing her heart out, later leading children to safety running from an evil fascist government.

The second was the 1960 Disney movie Pollyanna.

Spoiler: It’s NOT a kids movie.

In case you haven’t seen it. Pollyanna was raised by her strict, controlling, uber-wealthy Aunt who owned the town. Despite that, Pollyanna was cheerful to a fault and the town optimist. She snuck out to attend a carnival raising funds for an orphanage and when she snuck back into her upstairs room by climbing a tree, she fell and was paralyzed.

Her medical trauma caused a deep depression and the grown-ups decided they were going to fix her by introducing the “glad" game.

From then on out no matter how bad things were, she had to find something to be glad about.

I think I was 4 or 5 when I first watched this movie… from then on, the adults in my life also decided this game was a good idea… for me.

If I had a normal bad day, was in pain, frustrated, scared, or anything other than happy, there was only one response.

“Well, honey it sounds like we need to play the Pollyanna game.”

And you know what it taught me?

To bypass my emotions. To shut down my feelings and stuff them so deep, I forgot how to feel them. That “bad” emotions were not allowed.

That being “good”, meant pretending gratitude and performing cheerfulness.

What I didn’t learn until I was much, much older was how to understand and regulate my emotional well-being… Largely because the adults in my world had no idea how to regulate their own.

Real Gratitude Isn’t a Performance.

Photo by Megan Watson on Unsplash

Real gratitude is a practice that calls us to be present to the full reality and range of experiences in which we find ourselves.

It’s not a shutdown switch for your emotions.

It’s not an offramp from your pain.

It’s not a mask to hide your personhood.

Because real gratitude is not a performance, it’s a practice of being present.

It calls us to be present in and present with our experiences. And with one another.

To hold our hearts with tenderness.

To gaze into the hard things and see them as they are, even as we find moments of beauty in their midst.

Gratitude is a force that moves mountains.

Because it is rooted in that which is real and deep and costly and precious.

So, perchance you might have learned similar lessons along the way… you have full permission to start unlearning them.

You do not need to be chronically cheerful.

You are worth being seen and celebrated AS YOU ARE.

And It’s a Journey I’m Still Walking Out Every Day…

Some days more than others.

My Dad playing Grand-Paw with Charlie. Fun fact… my Dad actually named Charlie!

To be honest, this week snuck up on me.

It had the exact date-to-day ratio as five years ago when my dad passed in the early wee-hours on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Then on top of that, Tuesday I also found out the only medical system I trust where I live for my medical care is no longer covered by my insurance.

So, even though I have insurance, I have no access to care I trust here locally. I think I will have the basics, but, if I need anything complex, I’m up a creek without a paddle or a canoe. I’ll just be dog-paddling and hoping not to drown.

It has become evident for my well-being, Florida can no longer be my home.

In the blink of an eye, my new hobby became filling my car with all the donations it can hold.

The game of sorting has begun. What do I sell? What do I keep? What do I toss? What do I give away? The fall decorations will be packed with great intention this weekend, knowing they may never see the inside of this house again.

I don’t know how the finances will work. I don’t know how anything will be provided. I don’t even fully know where I’m going. It’s daunting.

I’ll get to the point where it feels less like grief, and more like adventure. I’m just not there yet. I really, really love being settled.

But… Do we have any Minnesotans in the house?

This Floridian thinks she is looking for winter. (Though I would need practical help learning to navigate large amounts of snow and ice on crutches.)

I’m also looking for a place without hurricanes, and not in wildfire or tornado alley. It needs to have a reliable social safety net, especially medically on the state level. I’d love the culture to be kind and all the seasons to be present in a calendar year. All of these things seem to point toward the great unknown (to me) land of Minnesota.

There’s a good likelihood I probably would have never left Florida as much as I’ve dreamed about other places and finding an artist’s cottage in the woods with four seasons.

Because Florida has always been my home base…

My parents were still alive the last time I left, moving to Africa. So in all my wandering the globe and living in other countries, every time I moved away previously, I always had a home to come back to here.

I don’t think I was fully prepared for how unsettling it feels not having that anchor.

So in the middle of this uncertain, uncomfortable place on Thanksgiving, I sit.

Breathing. Being. Not playing Pollyanna.

I’m not looking for 200 things to add to my gratitude list.

I’m practicing a gratitude that is rooted in presence.

Because deep, deep down in my soul I know... It will be presence that leads me home.

(For tomorrow, I’m settling in for friends, pumpkin, turkey, some slow stitching, the Macy’s Day Parade, and the National Dog Show.)

And of all the things I am deeply grateful for this season… one of my biggest gratitudes right now friend is… you.

As ever, thank you for being here. I wish you a day filled with goodness and beauty.

PS. If you’re in the market for some original art for the holidays, all my original art is 47% off until Monday 11:59 PM EST.