Why am I grateful?

I’ve been trying to follow the gratitude journal for the past few weeks.

It is not an easy task, as I feel so tired when I’m going to sleep that my brain can’t think about anything else but things that make me anxious, and about ideas for the briefs, and more briefs, and New Blood, and more anxiety, and about what mentors we book the next day, and about how many days we have before the deadline, and how many things I have to do the next day at my office work… and so on and so forth.

So, to help me relax my mind, I downloaded an app that supposedly reminds me and sends me notifications when I have to write about what I feel grateful for that day. Because otherwise I very easily forget to do something of the sort.

And I actually started writing, and that made me realise how lucky I really am. So I started to do a list. And I couldn’t stop. Why am I grateful?

I’m grateful to be surrounded by such a bunch of wonderful and talented people. 

I’m grateful that the same day of the New Blood’s deadline is Charlie’s (my beloved dog, the man of my life) 7th birthday, it is the second day of spring, and the days will be brighter (English weather permits), and longer. 

I’m grateful to find out that it is possible to work continuously 16 hours per day and be alive and to look forward to another day of the same relentless effort. 

I’m grateful that my housemates cook for me when I’m too busy.

I’m grateful (maybe more than about anything else) that pubs will open soon. And that we’ve had New Blood during a lockdown, which others will probably see as a curse, but actually selfishly feel it’s a big consolation to know that, while I’m at home working non stop, my friends aren’t out there on the pubs, having fun and enjoying their youth. They’re at home like me, just not doing anything productive.

To have a boyfriend that helps me disconnect from the school after reflection slides on Fridays.

I’m grateful to know how to use all the Adobe apps before starting the school.

To simply be healthy, and all my family to be healthy, too and, in this situation, knowing that no one close has been really affected by covid. 

To have my work supervised by amazing mentors and to learn from them every single day. 

I’m grateful to be lucky enough that the online version of the course launched this year for the first time while everyone in my office was sent home. This was realistically my only chance in life to have an opportunity like this, one I had been so keen to grasp for so long.

To not have killed any of my new plants in the last 2 months. And the spider plant is actually having babies.

To just find out I have a Nutella bottle on the back of my cupboard.

I’m grateful to feel other teams are doing way far better than me, and that activates my competitiveness.

That this week pre-newblood my manager is randomly sending me less work to do.

To be able to take advantage of this covid year, which many others consider a “lost year” and that we finish the school at the same time that covid “ends” and agencies start hiring.

Anyway, I’m grateful.