After my post about gratitude, I started thinking about how I think these days. I think I sounded prideful, so want to clarify that I still have my moments. My most common rant, though, is usually about the lack of gratitude I observe. It makes me sore.

Maybe I'm less susceptible to rant and open to gratitude because I live alone and have pretty much disconnected from the world. I live in a bubble. I think that's directly related to my lack of discontent. I invite little into my life to stir me into a tizzy or to trouble my heart. I stopped nibbling at the dramas in life. I hear stuff, but distance myself. It's not that I lack compassion, but too often the disappointments I hear about all come back to a lack of gratitude. I topple off my platform, but my intentions are carved from determination. I want to live with gratitude. The learning curve shouldn't be as steep as it is, but we do it without Cliffnotes, don't we?

With certainty, my illness has intensified my sense of gratitude. I'm so much more fully aware of each moment - that even this very moment is gone as I hit these keys... I can't even look over my shoulder to see it fade into my past because moments simply vanish without an encore. Just now I swiveled in my office chair to look out the window. My eyes landed on my beautiful property and caught a leaf parachuting from a limb. I watched it swirl, swirl, swirl to the forest floor. That moment passed, but my grateful heart caught it.

I think my dance changed a lot after my mother died. I still miss her something fierce - especially with my illness. She would've driven me crazy, but she would've fought to the death for me - done anything for me... I am very much alone in this battle with IPF and I resent it when people sugarcoat my plight differently. I am doing this alone - moment by moment by moment. I find gratitude in that, too. It's nonnegotiable. Gratitude is a must-have companion for me.

Okay, so think of a beautiful sandcastle and all the many bazillions of grains of sand it requires... That's what I do these days. I take my moments - all the bazillions of them and build my day. I take my moments and try to shape events and thoughts to build something beautiful. What will you build today?