Once you graduate from law school and pass the bar exam, you pledge to spend the rest of your natural born days focused on “the record”.

We talk of making a record, protecting the record, and preserving the record for appeal.  We speak to the record, muddy the record, and enter evidence into the record.  The record takes on the sacredness of the Holy Grail.

So.  For the Record:

Contrary to implications, I have NOT gone a year without complaining, nor have I actually stopped kvetching, whining, belly-aching, bitching, and what-have-you.  Had I achieved my goal of matriculating 365 days without voicing one iota of complaint, this blog would have shuddered to a merciful close.  Don’t give me more credit than I deserve.  (You know who you are.)

I’ve learned to identify complaint, both verbal and nonverbal.  I’ve beaten my own articulation of complaint back to a dull roar.  I see past pettiness considerably more than before I started this blog and its underlying mission.  But I have a long way to go, which explains its extension.

Lucille Johanna Lyons Corley told me a long time ago (well, she’s been dead for 33 years, so a REALLY long time ago) that where there is life, there is room for improvement.  I’m still alive.  I’m still improving.  And I’m still putting my best foot forward — as Johanna Ulz Lyons counseled — in furtherance of my #journeytojoy.

It’s the first day of the fifty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining — or, shall I say, My “attempt to make it an entire ” Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

This evening I watchd two young women working in the community garden in the park where I live. Ostensibly I was participating but my body does not move in the ways necessary to be a really active gardener. These ladies have astounded me with their daily dedication to the community garden which we all wanted and in which several of us are actively participating. It warms my heart to see Jessie and Sarah and Melanie turning good soil and planting young shoots or small seeds which we will all nurture and from which we will reap bounty.

As I contemplate the close of another month in my seemingly endless year, I am thinking of the gardeners in my life. My mother, my sister Ann, my mother-in-law, and my friend Katrina spring readily to mind. But I am also thinking of a more symbolic type of gardener, the ones who have sown happiness in my daily existence.

In particular, this evening I am remembering my friend Linda Overton. Linda was once my sister-in-law and worked at my law firm for several years.  I know I was a very difficult boss during that time. Perhaps I always was, but particularly so in those days. Like many people with chronic pain, I coped with my physical stress by trying to ignore it.  But the anguish manifested as unpleasant behavior towards those around me.

From Linda, I learned one of the sweetest phrases I have ever heard. I would say to her, ” I am so sorry I snapped at you.” She would smile and mildly remark, “I forgave you when you done it.” I will never forget the extraordinary kindness which Linda has shown to me all of the time that I have known her, which is three decades. If she is reading this, I hope she takes it to heart, and knows how grateful I am for her presence in my life.

It’s the 31st day of the 55th month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.