The (after) Thanksgiving Thankful Post

Saturday, November 24th, 2012 11 Comments

I know I’m a little late with my Thankful Post ~ But then, how can it ever be late to be thankful?

And WowWee there was a lot of “thankful” posting going on during this month. For those outside of North America, November is the month for vamped-up thankfulness – The Thanksgiving Holiday in the United States is in November and is always fertile ground for gratitude. There is a 30 days of Thankful posting on Facebook with tons of random postings of thankfulness & gratitude. It is really interesting to see why people are thankful. It made me start thinking especially after I read like the 243rd thankful post about health. It is nice to read how so many are conscious & thankful for their health & their loved ones health.  It’s an important thing, I’m in healthcare, I know what poor health can mean to a person & to that person’s family. And I 100% appreciate that I am healthy. I just think I have a different take on gratitude. I’m not a thankful-scrooge by any means, but I am not healthy by chance or by wishing for it or praying for it. I am healthy because I work hard at being healthy.

I am thankful for the mind that I have that chooses a healthy lifestyle.

Gratitude is important. Important in everything we do in life. And I love my family & friends & boyfriends as much as all the other thankful people out there. Really, I do.  But what was noticeably missing from all the cyber-gratitude was thankfulness for the not-so-pretty things in people’s lives. It was heartwarming & loving to see all the thankful posts in regards to husbands & wives and boyfriends & girlfriends. “I am thankful for my husband” is really nice. But what I want, what I was in search of was thankfulness for that guy, before the husband you’re so thankful for, that really fucked you up & fucked you over & brought you to rock bottom & sent you into group therapy where you met this current husband you are now thankful for.

Now that is gratitude.

OK, fine. Not everyone has that kind of dramatic experience. But you get my point.

I am thankful for hitting rock bottom, numerous times, for I would not be where I am today. I am especially thankful I hit rock bottom in a desperate search for love, for it taught me what love truly means. 

I have kept a gratitude journal for over 13 years. The last few years it’s been a digital journal. I took a trip down memory lane by accessing my digital gratitude journal recently and was not surprised to find days were I had difficulty, a lot of difficulty, finding anything to be grateful for.  One entry was simply “I am grateful for the socks on my feet.” No one ever said gratitude had to be big. So I get being thankful & grasping for the nearest, dearest, & easiest good stuff.

And then I came across this entry “I am thankful for the pain, for one day I will be able to greatly appreciate being without it.”

That above entry was from several years ago, but I realized then that I’ve kind of always been an advocate of the not-so-pretty gratitude – Meaning gratitude isn’t only for the good stuff.  Hence this post being born. The true challenge is being grateful while looking at your problems head-on.

I recently wrote a post about Trusting the Journey and when I came across this little quote I had an “a-ha” moment.

One can not Trust the Journey without Trusting the Struggle.

I am thankful for the struggle. It’s the struggle that kept me going on my journey. And it’s this precise journey that brought me here today that I am so grateful for. It wasn’t easy and there was pain and my heart was broken but I am grateful for every single step I had taken.

And while I am immensely grateful for all the people who are in my life that I choose to have in my life – I am also grateful for all the people I didn’t & don’t particularly choose to have in my life. 

I am grateful for all the wrong choices that brought me to all the right places.

I am thankful for new beginnings and second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances.

I am thankful to myself for being me and for trusting my voice.

And today and everyday I am thankful for my family, my friends, their loyalty, and the men who I’ve loved who have come & gone & come again. I am thankful for books, coffee, wine, & sparkling water. I am thankful for European Cafe’s. I am thankful for science, facts & logic. I am thankful for hangovers for it reminds to stop binge drinking, and last but not least I am thankful for my health, uhm, even though there are occasional binge parties thrown in. 

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