Thanksgiving. The annual celebration of being grateful, thankful, hopeful, belly-full. People thanking people, sharing warm wishes through shards of humanity that we couldn’t eke out yesterday because we were so stressed out about making today happen.

This whole year, I’ve focused on gratitude. They say the more you appreciate what you have, the less you actually need in order to be happy. They say being grateful makes you a happier person. So I really tried it. In the moments when opportunities were lost, I tried to experience the satisfying wholeness of all that remained. I tried to be brave. I tried to meet the darkness with hope and love on my side, without the crutch of experience-numbing medicinal additives. I tried to find grace in the face of adversity. I tried to find gratitude focused on the is-ness rather than the absence-of. In this I recognize such a powerful gesture, a statement of hopefulness and of faith in an abiding abundance.

But I stumbled. And I flailed. And, I’ll admit it, I wallowed a bit.

And now Christmas. The annual celebration of the spirit of giving, but, in my world, the “giving” part is followed mostly by -out and then -up. The unanswered wants awaken to name themselves, and the disappointments borne of the year passed well up to form a self-righteous gang of thieves, stealing the moment and holding it hostage without ransom.  I am anywhere, everywhere, but here. Because here is too much reminder of the what-isn’t.

My father died 15 days ago. My job of 17 years transitioned this year from stability to chaos. My home of the same number of years will soon become financially unavailable to me. I am unmoored, and the maelstrom is imminent. I feel self-piteous, but mostly I feel pitiful. I’ve never been very friendly with the feeling of weakness, of needfulness, of sitting-in-the-middle-of-the-floor-and-just-crying-ness. I wasn’t permitted that freedom of association with these emotions. They have always represented a raging neon sign of worthlessness in my world.

And yet, here I am. Honestly, I cannot summon the energy to be anything But. Right. Here. I do not feel grateful. I feel small and useless and undeserving. I am without ability to do at the moment, and I realize now I have long defined my worth by my doing. What have I done to deserve what I’ve received? This has ever been the inquiry of measure. If I have, it is because I have earned, through sheer force of will and of effort. If I have not, it’s because I have not willed or worked hard enough.

So where, I wonder, does this gratitude live?

And by “this gratitude,” I don’t mean the kind of gratitude that I express when the Starbucks barista hands me my short decaf soy mocha with “only a half a pump of chocolate, please,” or even when someone returns my key ring that I left in my mailbox the last time I checked my mail (four hours ago) that also holds my car keys and my mother’s house key and the keys to my office and other sacred important spaces, as well as my frequent shopper cards for the pet store and the pharmacy and the grocery store I hardly frequent anymore because their organics section is so lame. I don’t mean the way we say we’re grateful for our friends or for our new iPhones or for a raise or a family vacation.

Gratitude doesn’t live in the quotidian, in the daily grind, in the effort to get needs met at all costs. I know it doesn’t, because that’s where I live, and I don’t ever cross paths with gratitude when I’m doing my daily do. Gratitude doesn’t live in the transactional or the manipulative or the bargaining or the negotiating. I know it doesn’t, because that’s where I live, and I never brush shoulders with gratitude as I’m wending my way around and through obstacles and navigating my trajectory from here to that place we used to call “safe” in our game of tag when we were kids—that one designated spot we could just touch with a foot or even a finger and be impervious to being tagged and made “it.” When we were touching “safe,” we could relax our bodies and breathe for a moment. When we were touching “safe,” we could look around the yard and hear a bird sing, or we could laugh about something or even just not be worried for one infinitesimal moment about the consequences of being caught.

I’m pretty sure gratitude lives in that place where there is just silence, just stillness and being. I’m pretty sure of this because I don’t get to go to that place. I’m pretty sure that place, where gratitude lives, is the unobtainable reward I hold out for myself if I can just finish all the things I have to do first: that dessert I might be able to enjoy next week if I eat only greens and quinoa this week and drink lots of water; that snuggle I can settle into with my child after all the dishes are done and the laundry is folded and put away and the litter box is cleaned and the bills have been paid and the checkbook balanced; that nap I can take (because I got only three hours’ sleep last night) once all my work meetings have been concluded and oh so important emails answered.

I want to find where gratitude lives. I want to knock politely on its door, and I won’t mind waiting on the porch for a few minutes while it takes whatever time it needs to let me in. I want to be invited into its house and regale in its many beautiful rooms filled with natural light pouring over richly colored furnishings. I want to sit in a cozy, comfortable chair and wrap myself in a soft blanket and just be for hours and hours and hours on end.

I want to live in gratitude. But for now, I’d be happy just to visit it from time to time and feel welcome there.