it's been a quiet week with the house to myself. i didn't really celebrate thanksgiving, beyond catching up with family over the phone. i spent most of the actual holiday at the makerspace, working on stuff for zine club, which, if i'm honest, is kind of an ideal way to spend a holiday. as much as i like my family, longer periods of time off work are precious, and i often prefer to spend them at home, working on my own stuff and chilling out.
i have been feeling a bit anxious lately, and i've noticed that positive things in my life can sometimes feel like they fade into the background, while points of friction and difficult things continue to come to the foreground and be more noticed. i'm usually a fairly optimistic person, but recently i've been observing more of that "negativity bias" thing, which i've read about and know is fairly common. frankly, i think thanksgiving is kind of a bullshit holiday, and i'm wary of the potential for gratitude practices to become exercises in toxic positivity. but with those caveats, i decided to make a list of things that i am grateful for, so that i can look at it when i feel like my mind is fixating too much on the negative. but since i also don't want to avoid my problems, i included a list of things that frustrate me as well. i guess i'm hoping that acknowledging both the things i'm happy about and the things that frustrate me about my life right now will help give me a more balanced perspective. and having lists of things that i update over time can sometimes make me more aware of things, because i'm subconsciously looking for stuff to add to my list.
i'm not gonna share my lists here, as they are a bit personal, but i thought i'd share the idea of the practice. reading about how other people process and organize their thoughts is interesting to me, so i'm doing the same.
tomorrow i'm picking andrei up from the airport, and the next day i'll be back at work, so my mini-vacation (which i've somewhat ironically spent working just as hard as usual) is coming to an end soon. today, i'm planning to pack and prepare this new batch of mystery objects for shipping. (they came out really nice, i'm excited to send them out.) i might watch some battlestar galactica while doing some of the more rote tasks. and maybe i'll have some time to play video games if i finish the whole thing up before too late in the day.