This year's confessional is happening over on dreamwidth.

Finally, and belatedly, I'm thankful for those painful moments of embarrassment about my own past behavior or speech or thought that, when I can see past the cringe factor, let me see and appreciate the growth and progress I've made in my skills, values, empathy, or compassion. The moment isn't always fun, but it does always provide a powerful lens ( Read more... )

I'm so thankful for the many people who have been hurt by people who had power over them, and by the systems the powerful create, who are finding their voices and ways to speak up and out, or to work against the system quietly, or to find whatever way they can to make the world less likely to hurt the next person than it was to hurt them. They ( Read more... )

I'm grateful for my home and housemates. They've been away for the last few days, and that's been a pleasure of a sort that living alone all the time wouldn't provide. But ti also makes me appreciate how much I enjoy sharing a house with friends, the opportunistic hanging out that can occur without anyone having to go out of their way, the shared ( Read more... )

I'm thankful for the natural world, and the fact that we get to experience it as beautiful. There's no evolutionary reason that we have to find nature beautiful, but we do anyway. I've read that there have even been times in history when people really didn't find beauty in the natural world, which ... what a loss. I love nature's small beauties ( Read more... )

Like every year, I happily reserve Thanksgiving proper to give thanks for the people in my life who make it everything that it is. It doesn't even make sense to imagine my life without the people in my days, my months, my years, and the lives we make together, and in parallel, and in broad community with each other. Almost all of my most treasured ( Read more... )

I've been grateful almost every day this year for my newfound meditation practice. It's hard to describe what a difference it's making, because so much of it is inside me and kind of amounts to, "Well, I just FEEL different from how I did before." But it's true. It's been like hitting the gas on my personal development, helping me be kinder, more ( Read more... )

This has been a fucking exhausting year, and one that has seen an unusual amount of change, both locally and globally. Looking back on a year ago, I felt so bleak and desperate, and I'm glad to say that level of feeling has shifted to something that feels more sustainable. But there's still a lot of bleakness and desperation in the world, and it ( Read more... )

Back by popular demand! Tell me a secret! Tell me a not-so-secret! Whisper sweet somethings in my comment box. Express your maddest crush or deepest curiosity! Expound upon the fabulousness of your friends or lovers or would-be friends or lovers! Or people you know or want to know. Share your best self-care for the political climate! Do it ( Read more... )

I'm seeing more and more examples of Trump supporters who are surprised and upset at the choices Trump is making around cabinet picks (what about draining the swamp??) or policy suggestions (e.g., doing away with medicare). And I've seen a couple kinds of dismissals/mocking of those folks, most of which boil down to, "Well, that person should have ( Read more... )