It’s early in 2019, and already I’m feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude. I’ve had something going on that is causing me to get really dizzy. I fell once last month. I got on the ground to avoid falling again this month. And then I got horribly dizzy a third time just reading in bed. After those three incidents in a matter of weeks, I decided to see a doctor. (Fine, Dave insisted that I see a doctor. Details, details.) 

The general practitioner I went to said the first thing we have to do is rule out heart issues, so she sent me to a cardiologist. The three days between the visit to my general doctor and my visit to the cardiologist were terrifying. All of a sudden, I felt like I could feel every beat of my heart, and every time I got just a little out of breath, I wondered, “Is this a sign of something terrible?” Those worries were aggravated by the preliminary conclusions in an EKG that my general practitioner did – something about a heart incident. “Don’t let this alarm you,” she said.

Don’t let this alarm me? How could I be anything but alarmed?

So for three days, I walked this earth alarmed that all my worst fears about getting older were coming true, except that I hadn’t really had an opportunity to get old enough for the getting older worries to be really justified.

And then I went to the cardiologist who is mostly confident that I have a super healthy heart. We’re doing some other testing to be sure, but I am holding firmly to her confidence that my heart is perfect. “Salt your food more,” she said. Apparently, my blood pressure could stand to increase a little.

All of that said, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by gratitude. Work? I can take it. Lots of things on the to do list? No problem. Traffic for miles upon miles? Whatever.

I’m well. That alone will keep me swimming in gratitude for a good long time. And if you see me grumping along the way anytime soon or if you hear me fretting the getting older thing, give me a swift kick in the butt and tell me to snap out of it, would you? I have far too much to be grateful for. Far far too much.