The Monster in Your Closet

[ more on the "for this i am thankful" guest blog series ]

The series concluded December 21, 2012, but I will continue to accept guest blogs on gratitude. Email me for details.

1. August 12, 2011: “These Arms Were Meant to Hold You” by Darla of She’s A Maineiac
   “I’m serious,” I breathed deep as my trembling hands held out the stick for my husband to inspect. “It’s positive.”
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2. August 26, 2011: “The Clock” by Georgette of Georgette Sullins’s Blog
   The key never moved. It’s amazing to me how in a house of four kids and two busy parents the key was never lost, misplaced or mysteriously disappeared during our weekly routine or the moves to different states.
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3. September 2, 2011: “Annual Kite Flying Day” by Reneé A. Schuls-Jacobson of Lessons from Teachers and Twits
   One August, a man that I loved tried to kill me.
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4. September 9, 2011: “One of the Things I’m Grateful For” by Ré Harris of Sparks In Shadow
   I’m grateful for a body that responds extremely well to exercise. All I have to do is give it what it really wants, and it rewards me with sinew, limber fluidity, and glorious strength.
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5. September 23, 2011: “Grateful” by Chrissy Dano Johnson of silverfinofhope
   It takes ten hours to drive to northern Mississippi from Knoxville, Tennessee. And it’s a long ten hours. Especially in mid-July when the whole south is choking on the humidity and practically going deaf from the roar of horny cicadas.
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6. October 7, 2011: “The Thankful Writer: A Guest Blog About Gratitude” by Rusty Fischer of Zombies Don’t Blog
   I joined a new forum recently and one of the posters was asking for advice in advance of her first ever author interview.
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7. October 21, 2011: “What I Didn’t Realize” by Crystal of Can you hear me now?
   I know that TMiYC has a lot of parent readers and bloggers, so I’ve decided to share my parents with you.
   My parents were of the “tiger mom” type. They immigrated here from Asia (I won’t say any more lest I get in trouble with my computer tech dad), so were brought up in very strict households.
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8. October 28, 2011: “A Moment of Clarity” by Byron of The Byronic Man
   Yesterday, October 27^th, was my 10-year wedding anniversary. It’s a little difficult to even comprehend that that is true. In part because it doesn’t seem possible that it’s been 10 whole years, in part because it doesn’t seem possible that there was a time before her, and in part because nothing – I mean nothing – in my previous track record suggests that this would be a possibility.
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9. November 4, 2011: “Seven Days” by Kasey of Single Working Mom
   All week long I was living in the town of Anxiety. Stressed to the gills about taking my daughter, Maycee, down to Grandma’s for the rest of the week, while she was sick, for a “vacation” we had planned long ago before summer began.
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10. November 18, 2011: “Take a Sip” by Tori of The Ramblings
    I stood at the mouth of the ocean. The salt brushed loose from the breeze. Sand wrapped my toes. A baby babbled in the background. Just hushing wave, a child’s laughter, hushing wave, whirling winds, a child’s brilliant happiness.
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11. December 2, 2011: “Life is Like an Empty Box of Chocolates (Because I Ate Them All)” by Julie of goguiltypleasures
    Ten years ago, I attended a local community college in New Jersey, my sights set on transferring to a liberal arts university in Manhattan to study writing. I had a great group of older, witty, musically gifted, insanely intelligent friends, and when I wasn’t working or diligently studying, I spent my time with them.
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12. December 9, 2011: “A survivor by any other name . . . ” by Dominica of The Spoiled Life
    I do not own a story of true survival and encouragement. I believe my story is more of procrastination and trepidation. I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy eleven years ago. Such a miraculous gift from the heavens above, with rosebud lips and blue eyes that would melt my heart.
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13. December 16, 2011: “Magic Words” by Ilana of SlightlyIgnorant
    A few days ago, Deb asked to write a guest post for this, her awesome blog. I was incredibly flattered and excited and began to think of different topics I could write about. The guidelines I had received were loose enough to allow me lots of freedom: pick one thing I’m grateful for, and write about it. Simple enough, right?
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14. January 6, 2012: “Where I embrace my inner geek” by John of The Adventures of Daddy Runs a Lot
    I’m not sure how I came to follow the lovely Deborah here . . . maybe I was blog-hopping and she wrote a comment on someone’s blog that caught my eye. Maybe I was looking for topless photos of Jennifer Garner and somehow came upon her notes from being an extra on Alias. Maybe she stumbled upon my blog and I followed the link back to her place. All I know is that, once I figured out what “this,” was, I knew I was at home.
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15. January 20, 2012: “Little Gratitude” by Peg of Ramblings
    I have… my children…my husband and my friends…enough to eat…a home…my health, and the health of my family…an agile brain and the education to feed it… a loving, supportive family that nurtures me…been born to a country where freedom is a right.
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16. February 3, 2012: “Give it that extra push!” by Martine of nascentnovelist
    When Deb asked me to write a post about something I was grateful for, the answer popped into my head immediately: my back injury. It sounds weird, I know, but I am. My back injury has been a constant companion for over two decades, and like a nagging aunt that refuses to leave you alone until you button up your shirt before going out in November, it’s been giving me good advice. I just needed to learn how to listen.
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17. February 17, 2012: “Two Ships” by Renee of Life in the Boomer Lane
    In the midst of the riches that surround me, and family and friends and health and purpose, I am thankful for two moments in time that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my life.Years before I was born, two children, one in Poland and one in Russia, each stepped onto a different ship.
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18. March 2, 2012: “My Blog Saved Our Family” by Shannon of Mynewfavoriteday
    To say I had sorrows could not begin to describe the emotional place I was in in March of 2011. As I sat on the couch with my legs crossed and my computer in my lap, my babies were on the floor. E in her baby chair with the oxygen tube delivering her the air she needed to survive with each breath while her monitor quietly registered her heart rate and oxygen levels with each beat of her pulse. Q happily rolling around on the floor knocking into seemingly every hard and potentially dangerous surface with his overly large head. My precious babies were now 18 months old from the day they were born, but because they had been born 3 terrifying months early, they were supposed to be developmentally around 15 months. Supposed to be.
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19. March 16, 2012: “Thanks for the pain” by Christine of The Dash Between
    When Deb asked me if I would write a FTIAT entry, I was honored and thrilled! I have so much to be thankful for, I figured it would be a piece of cake to write. Was I ever wrong about that. The doubts started coming, and hard. I wasn’t good enough to be included with the many amazing writers The Monster In Your Closet has featured. I don’t write well enough. What I had to say was boring by comparison to other stories. Then I realized that I don’t have to be a fantastic writer. That comparing myself to others was ridiculous, given that we all have our own history. So, I have sucked in a deep breath and started to write.
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20. March 30, 2012: “The Strongest Woman I Know” by Lisa of Insignificant at Best
    My grandmother, whom I’ve always called Gran, is one of my heroes. All of five feet and maybe 90 pounds soaking wet, she is the matriarch of our family and the strongest woman I know. When my grandmother says something, you don’t argue. You do it. The whole family knows that.
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21. April 13, 2012: “A Poem, if You Please – I am Thankful for These” by Katy of Mumblings of a Middle Aged Madwoman
    A hug before sleep
    Awaken to a kiss
    Without a doubt
    I am thankful for this.
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22. April 20, 2012: “The Pogues and Parcheesi and afternoon strolls through IKEA” by Mackenzie of Bright Strange Things
    There are many things which have come easily to me, in the course of my life. I took pretty effortlessly to drawing things, and writing, and getting through school with an absolute bare minimum of effort, and I am also, for the record, pretty good at knitting potholders. Things that I am not so much good at include talking, telephones, arguments, coping with ghastly color schemes, and anything to do with relationships of any kind.
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23. April 27, 2012: “The Waiting Room” by Ben of lifefromthesmallestroom
    Life is a battle.
    If there is one thing I know what to do and that is fight.
    People call me stubborn but there is a fine line between being stubborn and being determined, and I see myself as determined.
    Cancer has shaped my life, in a way it’s determined my life course so far. I wouldn’t be the person I am now if not for cancer.
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24. May 11, 2012: “The Far Side of Sanity and Back Again: An Evolution in Thank You” by Kathy at reinventing the event horizon
    Sometimes gratitude takes time to develop. Sometimes it’s a process.
    For me, being thankful is something I’ve matured into. In me, the feeling has aged, like cheese, fine wine, a decent sourdough—pungent, rich and layered with flavor.
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25. May 25, 2012: “Gratitude for Small Things” by Elizabeth Obih-Frank of Mirth and Motivation
    When I received Deborah’s first email about participating in this wonderful exercise – writing an FTIAT entry – on one thing we are grateful for, quite a number of possible topics with positive outcomes crossed my mind. Should I write about my life altering moments? How about the travails and triumphs of an immigrant woman?
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26. June 8, 2012: “The Power of Words to Reconnect A Life” by Penny of Life Reconnected
    ‘I’ve Been Blogging Since You Left Me’ was one of the original title possibilities for my blog. Along with ‘Dumped at Fifty’, ‘On The Scrapheap’ and ‘Better Out Than In’. As I moved through trying to amuse myself to getting to the essence of what I needed to express ‘A Design For Life’ and ‘House, Job, Life’ finally became Life Reconnected. That was one year ago.
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27. June 22, 2012: “For this I am thankful” by Victoria of The Loneliness of the Stay-at-Home-Mother
    Spoken word. Birdsong. Music. Laughter. Languages. Poetry and prose. Love.These are things that move me; things I cannot live without; things I am certainly thankful for. But really, my thanks must be directed at something much more basic than even these simple things. Something elemental, so to speak: vibration; the pulse, the energy, the movement that brings all of these other things into being.
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28. July 6, 2012: “Set it free” by Dawn of Enlightenment Ain’t for Sissies
    There is an old adage that if you love something, you set it free. If it loves you, it will return, but if it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with. As I write this, I am that which is being set free. You see, two months ago, I asked my husband for a divorce.
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29. July 20, 2012: “October Son” by Donnell at A Wordsmith’s Brainworks
    A Monday born October son,
    I felt your unspoiled, neonate skin.
    We were three and all complete,
    and for it I was thankful.
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30. August 3, 2012: “Battle Scars and Brokenness” by Heather at High-Block: Coming Up from Under
    One of the first times I chose my own birthday card for my mother, I found a card that was perfect for us. I remember neither what the card looked like nor what it said; I only vaguely remember that it joked about being thankful for a parent’s patience.What I do remember is my mother’s response. She stared at me, puzzled. “You’re not a bad daughter.”
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31. August 17, 2012: “Living systems” by Andrew Kincaid at Lucid Dreams and Saturn Skies
    The more I study biology, the more I am amazed that any living system works at all. We are used to thinking of our body as a single whole, but that could not be further from the truth. In reality, each and every one of us are a super colony of trillions upon trillions of interconnected and symbiotic cells and bacteria.
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32. August 31, 2012: “Mama and that Old Brown Dog” by Lynda of If Only She Had Applied Herself
    My mom hated dogs, and she was quick to give her reasons. They’re loud. They stink. They’re a waste of hard-earned money that should be spent on more important things like food and HBO. I never had a pet as a child, but I guess you don’t miss what you never had because it wasn’t a bone of contention with me. I didn’t ache for a puppy only to be denied by my frugal parents. No, I longed for Barbie dolls. They were much easier to care for anyway, and my Malibu Ken never once left a smelly surprise by the back door.
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33. September 14, 2012: “Mothers and Daughters” by Katy of I Want A Dumpster Baby
    Here’s the thing about Mothers and Daughters. It’s a tricky relationship. One that ebbs and flows and, ultimately, one that teaches a girl how to get along in the world as a girl and then as a woman. The mother does her best to teach her daughter what she has learned and then does her best to let her go. No matter how many wrong turns the daughter makes, the mother is just there letting her know that she is loved.
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34. September 21, 2012: “Awakening” by Sarcastic Mama
    I woke up today. Let me explain why I share this here. There are many things I am truly thankful for, so it was very difficult to narrow it down to just one thing for this post. But, after careful consideration, I have narrowed it down. I am thankful I woke up today. That may seem small, but stop for a moment and think of all the people who didn’t wake up today. I woke up today. And since I did, I was able to see the smiles on my children’s faces.
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35. September 28, 2012: “With God’s love, I’ll be Okay.” by El of Running from Hell with El
    Most mornings start like this morning: I wake from dreams where I’m stuck in the past. In these dreams, I’m trying to run, talk, plead or beg my way out of a remembered time or place, real or symbolic, from childhood. My childhood, as captured in my dreams, is a prison my mind, my past, and my family once put me in. I try everything to escape, but the only way out of that hell is by turning my eyes to the morning light.
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36. October 19, 2012: “I will not sit idly by…” by Chris of From the Bungalow
    “They’ve ruled out everything else. I have ALS.”
    Somehow, those words never really registered with me until just now, right after I typed them. There has been an underlying malaise these past few months following the loss of my parents’ house to fire, and shortly thereafter, the sudden loss of my maternal grandmother to cancer. But that diagnosis… those words? Superficial until now. I didn’t want to accept it. I couldn’t.
    My mom is dying, and I am helpless to stop it.
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37. October 26, 2012: “Ode to Jay” by Sheila of Mary Tyler Mom
    I remember it clearly. It was a cloudy November day. I was playing with my eleven month old baby boy. I turned my head and he was smiling at me, so full of joy and love. I loved him, too, but in that moment, it was like meeting him for the first time, as if, almost, I had just birthed him.
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38. November 9, 2012: “Past, present and imperfection” by Jess of Sapphire and Rain
    In the fall of 1998, I was eighteen years old and not yet motivated enough to get my driver’s license. My slightly older boyfriend drove me around most of the time, but on some days he was unavailable. My dad was usually at work. So on those days, I had to walk to my job.
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39. November 23, 2012: “Community” by Michelle of Mused
    When I accepted the opportunity to participate in this blog project, I pondered the topic of gratitude for quite a while. Isn’t it one of those subjects when someone asks you what you are truly grateful for, you come up with this priority list in your mind of topics that you feel should be the top answers and they are? It is like asking (in my case) a fellow Christian what deceased famous person they would love to meet and you know that they have to answer Jesus–duh! I didn’t want to answer this question like that because it is a given that I am grateful for life itself and my family–more that I can express, in fact. At this moment, my heart tells me that I really want to express my thankfulness for my creative community.
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40. December 7, 2012: “For this I am thankful…” by Christine of Know My Worth
    Hunger
    a raw, primal siren
    informing of desire
    signaling a most basic need
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41. December 14, 2012: “The Ocean Roars, Too.“ by Anthony Robinson, aka “Ba.D.”
    I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  I snore.  I’m not talking about just a little heavy breathing or a light purr.  I saw wood.  I am a chainsaw.  I roar like a 747 coming down for an emergency landing, or a Mack Truck bearing down on a stalled out Datsun on the I-5 on a rainy evening: My snore is the Destroyer of Worlds and the Eater of Suns.
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42. December 21, 2012: “A Love Without Strings” by Anna
    I met Christopher in my living room, where I was sunk into a fat flowery couch with my right foot propped up, recovering from ankle surgery. I was four months sober at the time and had been scared to death of general anesthesia– not because I thought I might not wake up, but because I was terrified I’d like the drugs so much they’d pull me back into the hell I’d just climbed out of.

This series has concluded.