So I missed a blog post last week… I told myself when I launched Syrup & Scott I was going to start off with one blog post a week.  And my third week in, I already missed a post.  Between a weekend girls trip to San Francisco and coming down with a virus that resembled a lesser version of a cold, I didn’t get a post up last week.  I’m not trying to make excuses.  The post should’ve gone up.  But instead, I laid in bed having my own pity party of one.  That post will go up Friday (hurray for two posts in one week), but while sick I spent a lot of time thinking about gratefulness and felt that I needed to write about it.  

I don’t know about you but when I can’t think of a better way to spend my time, I spend wayyyy too much time on my phone.  So of course whilst rewatching FRIENDS on Netflix I was consistently on social media.

I was laying in bed complaining about my sort-of-cold and somehow ended up in the depths of a childhood cancer feed on Instagram.  How?  I’m not really sure.  But I’m glad I did.  I’ve never been seriously ill.  I’ve never had to spend night after night in a hospital bed.  But while scrolling through images and stories I realized how incredibly grateful I am that all I had was a virus.  In about a week I’d be virus-free.  I’d be able to breathe through my nose again.  My headache would go away.  I’d be back to normal.  For so many individuals that is not the case.  A sniffle or a cough could mean a night spent in the ER.  The number of individuals that came down with the flu this season and didn’t recover is exorbitantly high.

I’m so incredibly lucky to be as healthy as I am and I think a lot of us forget that something like a clean bill of health is truly a gift.  Every conversation I have with a friend who has a cold or is struggling through the flu contains the phrase “I’m dying” and even I’ve said it without thinking twice.  This past week every time I caught myself starting to think or say that phrase I stopped and changed my words.  I decided to spend the rest of my sick days being grateful.  I could always feel worse and my health could always be worse.  And maybe it was a placebo effect or maybe it was a short-lived virus, but within a week I’ve recovered.  The power of positivity really does have an affect on you as a person in more ways than one.  

This wasn’t meant to be a shaming post to make anyone feel bad, but instead I just wanted to share my thoughts and realizations.  I got to spend the best weekend in San Francisco with some of the best people (blog posts coming soon).  I came down with a bug and recovered quickly.  Overall I’m just incredibly grateful and I think that in itself is something worth sharing!