Gratitude2

You won’t believe this.

Ok you will believe this but there will be irony, for sure.

I wrote a great post (at least to me) on gratitide. It was called Gratitude. It wasn’t called Gratitude1 because I didn’t anticipate a need for a Gratitude2

Excuse me while I hit save.

Ok so as I was saying….I wrote this post, the first version, and I was cleaning it up and looking for photos. A good post takes me 1-2 hours – start to finish. And this one was GOOD.

I wrote it waiting for everyone here on Maui to wake up and they’ll be all wake-up-and-go soon. So the clock was and still is a-ticking.

Can anyone guess the next thing that happened while I was polishing my damn post called Gratitude and dreaming of all the people I might reach out to and speak to and get kudos from (yes I do love the attention that a good post brings, and any attention, really)- from all 5-10 of you – it matters, a lot.

It’s that whole “without an audience I am nothing” thing.

So yeah that’s right. I thought I was discarding a photo but instead the whole post vanished.

Kabaam! Just like that.

Excuse me while I hit save draft again.

I was calm until I went into my drafts and it was not there. Hmmmm. So I then moved over to the trash and – nuthin’

I searched the internet for a fix. Mmm. No. Never happened to anyone, or at least anyone able to fix the problem…it wasnt even a problem. At this point it was a F*CKING EMERGENCY!!!!

Deep breath, hit save, and I am back.

I then mistakenly called India via a sneeky redirect in which an ad for website help posing as WordPress offered to accept money for not being able to help me but would I be interested in…..

…..can you imagine my state at this point??

I was trying to breathe in the Gratitude and exhale out the fuggity fug fug but when I found the correct chat site and they asked me to choose how I was feeling (I kid you not) I skipped right over the “upset” button and hit the square labeled “panicked”.

Well, I was. I was panicked. I was in a panic because I write in a flow state that I can’t always recreate. Often I start out writing about one thing and end up halfway across the world on an entirely different topic. All the stops along the way just spill out, for better or for worse. That’s what editing is for.

That’s also why it takes me a couple of hours to write a post. It flows, I edit, I put in pics. I proofread and when it’s “good enough” and/or I’m over it, I hit publish.

I would never ever ever hit discard. I keep everything I write, whether it’s a jewel or a literal turd that mocks the English language. So the whole situation was really out of control for me and I was now at level 4 lamaze breathing panic and not doing well at all.

Still, I had just written a post called Gratitude (now known as Gratitude1) and so when it came time to chat I couldn’t really flip out, now could I? So I flipped out a little bit. I flipped out in my head while trying to remain calm.

Here you go. I’m too tired to crop so just read the chat box.

Ok so that happened and I immediately wanted a beer which was really alarming to realize. Especially at 9 am. Though in my defense it is 11 am in Oakland so not quite as bad.

I did not drink a beer because it would confirm a “problem with alcohol” and also – the real reason – we have a long hike planned today and the last time I tried that I almost fainted. Though in my defense once again I was probably actively bleeding and anemic from my undiagnosed at-the-time rubbing hiatal hernia and huge secondary stomach ulcer. But still no beer on hikes is a good rule and I stuck to it.

About that time my daughter woke up and I told her I was writing G2 (I can’t even write the word anymore) and she said through sleepy eyes in that sweet gentle way of hers: write it in Notes then copy it to WordPress next time.

Smart as a whip, that one.

I made her take this pic in real time writing this:

Excuse me while I hit save.

Right now, on Thanksgiving Day, this is all you are going to get.

If I have it in me I’ll try to recreate G1 in a post called G3. Later. When I’m done with some actual living and can get back to this…this….whatever it is.

Whatever it is, today I felt Grateful.

And I wanted you all to know that. ❤️