What I am thankful for

Building this list is a good thing

---

It is good to feel gratitude throughout one’s day and throughout one’s life.

It is self-destructive to lament why is this happening to me?

These things I know to be true.

So, what am I grateful for?

I have my health at age 62.

Not all of it. I stress fractured my spine three decades ago and it haunts me still, eventually killing my ability to run — long my superpower.

But that injury forced me into both yoga and cycling, with the latter providing me a daily joy and some of the best brain time I achieve.

After 15 or so surgicals, split largely between ears/nose/throat, I sleep with my mouth closed and my hearing remains solid.

I have seemingly conquered a persistent hemorrhaging inside my left eye. It once threatened my sight, and now I am almost completely done treating it.

All in all, that is a lot to be thankful for, particularly at 62, when those things tend to be taken away from you sequentially and your world narrows, so zero complaints from me.

I have been in love with the same woman for 42 years, 38 of them married. She constitutes the primary ballast in my life. When I am with her, I lose all fear of “missing out” on something … anything. I am at the center of the universe and it is a very warm and happy place. I still routinely fall in love with her, and it is the best feeling in the world.

My spouse remains generally healthy, and I value that more than just about anything in this universe. I have but one kernel fear and that is confronting life without her, so I work hard to respect that fear on a daily basis. I can always do so much better in this regard.

Vonne and I had three kids by birth, and adopted three. We were extremely fortunate in both respects: the sheer physical ability of the former, and sufficient resources and optimism (not all that different when you think about it) for the latter.

All six are alive and doing well, with one happily married. Our relationships remain strong — particularly at the worst points in time, when they really matter. I am immensely proud of their character and the lives they are forging — both collectively and individually.

As our first born was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer as a two-year-old, I remain in awe of just how lucky I am not to have lost a child.

All six of my surviving siblings (two died in the 1950s before my time) remain alive and well, which is a huge comfort as I am the second-youngest and I have no desire to outlast any of them. Keeping them and theirs in my universe gives it so much more joy than I would otherwise know. I am certain this is why Vonne and I adopted three after having three. There is great strength in such numbers, worth every sacrifice along the way.

Looking back over my life, I had a happy childhood and a great education. I was fortunate enough to fall in love with someone and to parent others. What more can one ask for?

I have traveled the world in my work, and that work has remained meaningful for me almost four decades in. I still feel great purpose and others still spot that in me. I am surrounded and supported by a network of great colleagues, and I get to work from home (something I was fortunate enough to pioneer in the mid-1990s and a lifestyle for me since leaving government in 2005).

I still enjoy being a Christian and Catholic, although it has been more difficult as I have aged and my church grows more conservative. I remain grateful for my Catholic upbringing and I am proud that all of my kids underwent those grounding experiences because faith is crucial for both survival and happiness — however it is expressed and maintained.

I feel immensely blessed to be an American — a secular faith that now resides within me with more strength and commitment than at any previous time in my life. It makes me care about this country and our world and I relish the sense that, in some small way, I am in the business of preserving and improving both.

That instinct is what gets me up in the morning, along with the knowledge that my continued existence is so crucial for all of my loved ones. I am particularly grateful for that singular self-awareness.

My regrets are thankfully few. I wish I had short-sold our house earlier during the Great Recession, and I am sad I never got to meet Bart Starr at my grandfather’s induction into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame because of my daughter Emily’s birth.

As for everything else? I value the mistakes and negative experiences, along with the painful losses, because they all combine to make me what I am today, and I am happy being myself. I see all the choices I’ve made over the decades and understand them to be essentially true to my nature, so it is impossible to complain about the consequences or where I ended up or with whom. I knew exactly what I was doing throughout, and the life that has resulted is all me and mine — all of it true and genuine.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be and exactly whom I am supposed to be, and that knowledge is real peace.

And I get a Packers game on Thanksgiving night.

Thank you universe. Thank you God. Thank you America.

Thank you all my loved ones.

I could not be more blessed and grateful.

---

---