I’ve been really struggling the past two weeks with writer’s block. Up to recently, I’ve had several blog posts written and ready to go each week. I decide which one I feel like posting, and then put the others away to wait for a different week. However, this weekend when I went to look at the posts that were ready to go, there weren’t any left. I have several that I have started and haven’t finished, but none of them felt right to work on at this time. So I spent the weekend staring at my computer screen, scrolling through writing prompts, Pinterest, pictures, and lyrics, yet nothing was really speaking to me. I went through the whole weekend without writing, which hasn’t happened in a long time. I was stuck with a case of good ‘ol writer’s block.
Finally, it came to me, and it came to me in the form of a hand turkey. Yep, that’s what I said. A hand turkey. Wasn’t expecting that, now were you? Yeah, neither was I.
One day, after battling with my writer’s block for over two hours, I shut my computer (with enough force that it startled Rocky from his nap), got up from my couch and started walking around my house. I didn’t really need anything, but I could not sit and stare at an empty screen for any longer. Pacing around my house, grasping for something to write about, I found myself in the kitchen.
Full disclosure here, I hate my kitchen. If I’m being completely honest, my kitchen is my least favorite room in my whole house. I just don’t really spend much time in there and don’t really enjoy the time that I have to spend. However, there’s something that makes my kitchen a more inviting place, and that’s my fridge. It’s not what’s in the fridge, but what’s hung up on it. My fridge is covered with pictures of most of my favorite humans. Looking at the pictures makes me happy and transports me back to places and times that give me that full heart feeling. There are many times when I’m walking through my kitchen, whether it is in the morning as I’m getting ready, filling up my water bottle, or just passing through, that I find myself stopped and looking intently at the pictures that I have hung up. This night was no different. As I was pacing in frustration, something on my fridge caught my eye...a hand turkey.
This hand turkey has a funny backstory, but I’ll spare you all the details because it’s one of those “you have to be there stories.” Long story short, I spent last Thanksgiving in treatment. Although I was in treatment, it was one of the BEST Thanksgivings I’ve ever had. We were given decorations and told to decorate our house to make it festive. My elementary teacher brain automatically thought of one thing: hand turkeys. It’s not Thanksgiving without a good homemade hand turkey, am I right? Well, only one of my friends agreed with the magnitude of this amazing idea, so Jonna and I made our very own hand turkeys.
The way that I’ve always been taught to make hand turkeys is to trace your hand, decorate it, and then write what you’re thankful for on each finger. As I was sitting in Arizona, I looked around the house at my newfound friends, out the window at the beautiful desert, then let my mind wander home and started listing everything I was thankful for. I was thankful for the Meadows, my health, my family, my friends, new beginnings. However, I couldn’t stop there. I began to realize just how many things and people I was thankful for. Jonna and I decorated our turkeys and began scribbling furiously all over the palms, naming the people and things we were grateful for in our life. We proudly (and somewhat obnoxiously) hung them up by the dinner table so that everyone could admire our artwork during the hours we spent at the table each day. Those two turkeys gave me so much joy when I was at the Ranch, and my hand turkey has continued to bring me joy and make me smile every time I look at it up on my fridge.
In addition to making me smile and reminding me of that fun day every time I see it, it also reminds me just how much I have to be thankful for. In all the hustle and bustle of daily life, the appointments and meetings and driving and work and responsibilities, it’s easy as human beings to get caught up in our to-do lists. What did I get done today? Was I productive enough? What is still left on my to-do list? What should be on my to-do list for tomorrow? We get so caught up in what we should be doing and what other people want or expect from us, that we rarely slow down and take the time to look at what did go well in our days. In all our busyness, it’s easy to look past what we do have, and focus more on what we don’t have or what we need to get done.
I’m insanely guilty of this. As a perfectionist, and somewhat of a pessimist, I focus a lot on what I didn’t get done, what didn’t get done “well enough,” and am endlessly looking forward to the next day, week, or month and adding to my to-do list constantly. As a list person, I keep my handy dandy to-do list in my phone and find that the quicker I check things off of it, the quicker more things are added. It’s a vicious cycle, and often makes me feel like I’m failing.
So, what if we set our to-do lists aside for a bit each day? I’m not saying you need to give it up, I know that I need my trusty to-do list to keep track of everything that needs to get done, but what if you focus your attention on a different kind of list each day as well?
In the past year and a half or so, part of my ‘journaling every day goal’ included gratitude journaling. After writing about my day, and including all the good, the bad and the ugly things that the day included, I always end with writing the things that I’m grateful for from that day. I force myself to do this, even on the worst of days, because I’ve come to realize that there is always something to be thankful for, you just may need to look a little harder on some days as compared to others. By the end of my journal entry, I always find my pessimistic self looking at life in a more positive light.
This past weekend as I stood in my kitchen looking at the pictures and my hand turkey, I once again came to the realization of just how much I have to be grateful for. My hand turkey is full, yet I know that it doesn’t even come close to encompassing all the people in my life that support me, influence me, and love me in spite of all my imperfections and faults. I may have large basketball player hands, but my hand is still not big enough to fit all the amazing people that I’m lucky enough to have in my life.
I’m a person that needs a lot of reminders. So I’ve ensured that I have some type of reminder of what I’m grateful for in all the places that I spend the most time. My bedroom is full of pictures, my bathroom mirror has quotes, bible verses, and handwritten notes that remind me that I’m loved and of what’s important, my wall over my desk at school has pictures and a heart map, and my hand turkey is going to remain on my fridge, all to help me remember just how blessed I am in this life.
What is your “hand turkey?” What is it that reminds you of all you have to be grateful for on those hard days that make it easy for you to forget? I encourage you to be intentional in the things that you walk past and look at each day. Find something that makes you smile, and that reminds you of just how blessed you are in this wild & precious life. ❤️
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