am I ready for gratitude?

it’s been some time since I’ve practised gratitude. somehow, everytime I choose to be kind to myself, my body resists it with a trembling sensation and a consequent storm. I feel scared of gratitude now, since it always is that one thing that floods me with waves of transformational emotions.

but there are some moments that I catch myself feeling grateful. when I’m on the bicycle, roaming the lush parks catching the blackbird song before it dies, I feel my heart surging for a moment or two. still, the moment I go back to myself and my shameful flaws, I find that gratitude to be obsolete.

I wish I could let that gratitude in but there’s a shield in my heart. a shield of all my flaws and all the ways I could be better. it haunts me how much there is left to do and grow to become. I don’t go well with self-kindness and going slow. I’m a mountaineer. I belong to peaks and skylines close to the sun. this ground of patience does not suit me, I’m where patience is alchemised, naming it the journeying.

and so, I’m working hard. all my ideals await me. I’m working on little ones now, but once I’m there, all the rest will be.

I am only in line with gratitude when I work hard enough to earn it. I wonder if it makes sense, but I can only be grateful when I am grateful for me.