A Day of Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!! I hope the holiday is finding you all safe, happy, and healthy and that you are surrounded by love and peace. I know that I am safe, happy and healthy which I am so grateful for. I am also very grateful for being surrounded by love, both from incredible friends and amazing family. I love them all so much!!!! I am blessed beyond the telling of it and I know that I live a pretty charmed life. I know that I am finally in a place where I can see that and recognize that and appreciate it all. So I am most grateful for having my eyes opened and being awakened to all that I do have in my life and that I have stopped worrying and complaining about what I don't have.

Now the one question I have is why does it take a day like Thanksgiving for everyone, myself included, to realize how fortunate they are? I take everything for granted all the time. Like my good health for example. I am healthy and rarely do I get sick enough to be down and out for long. I do get the sniffles now and again or my sinuses act up every so often, but for the most part, I am healthy. But I don't appreciate it the way I should. I only recognize how healthy I am whenever I get sick or today when I am asked what I am grateful for. I am grateful for my health and the fact that my mind and body are fully functioning with all parts still active and capable. I am so blessed in that area and yet I don't often I don't admit that. I guess its just human nature for us to take good health for granted.

I am also very grateful for my family and friends who show me such unwavering and unflinching support and love. There are times I feel pretty low or down and out but they are there to pick me back up and bring me back to the light. Sometimes they may not even know that they have done that, namely because I don't tell them. But in case they don't know or I don't show them or tell them enough, thank you all for your love and your support. It brings me so much joy I can never try to define it or repay it back to you. The inspiration I receive from your beauty, strength, and courage is something I am so humbled by. I truly feel as though I am the most fortunate person in the world to have people around me that care so damn much about me. In the past, I felt unlovable and like an outsider who didn't belong but you all make me realize how wrong I was. I am lovable because I am loved and I am not an outsider because you guys embrace me and accept me. So I am so, so very grateful for all of you. God really did bless me with some of the most amazing people to surround me.

I am also very grateful for my imperfections. I know that might seem odd to say but it is the absolute truth. I find that every day I live, the more I appreciate how imperfect we all are and how life is so full of imperfections. I thank God that I am not perfect for lots of reasons (and if you read a certain blog from a week ago you will see why) but mostly because it is far less work to be imperfect self than to strive to be a fake model of perfection. I don't have to try so hard and I don't carry around as much stress or anger as I did when I was trying to be perfect. I am happier, healthier and much saner than I was back then. So I am  beyond thankful for being full of blemishes and spots.

I am grateful for the ability to write. I am so glad to have found my purpose in life and to have such a passion for something because I know I used to walk around without any passion for anything, or I never was comfortable with admitting that writing was my passion due to fear of what others might say about it. I am no longer afraid to say that I am passionate about writing and that I have so many dreams I want to seek from this passion of mine. I am grateful for having this passion because I know my voice and my words matter and I can use my words to illustrate that. I can maybe reach someone enough to get them inspired, which is the greatest gift anyone can ever be given. So I wake up every day knowing I am so blessed to have found my path in life and my passion moving forward. I hope everyone else out there finds the same.

I am grateful for the many men and women who sacrifice so much, namely their lives, to keep our freedom and liberty. I love that I can write what I want and desire to and can raise my voice for or against a cause because I have the liberty to do so. If not for these brave and courageous people, I would not have that opportunity to reach anyone with my words and would not be able to pursue what I am passionate about. Thank you is such a small, seemingly insignificant thing to say, but I say it loudly: THANK YOU!!!!!!!

I am also grateful to have had the chance to see a play that literally changed my life. I have had some life changing moments before and I am sure I may have some more at some point, but none of them have ever made me feel so gutted or that have left me so haunted and consumed by the message that the play Underneathmybed did. That play just stirred up emotions in me that I had not ever felt before and ignited a fire deep in my soul that was laying dormant before that night. I walked away from that play a better, stronger, more self-aware person and I will never forget the lessons I took from seeing it and the powerful message that I still carry with me in my heart. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to see that play because it truly helped me along this path and gave me so much more confidence to be myself and follow my dreams.

So those are the things are I am most thankful and grateful for. I am not just going to be thankful for these on Thanksgiving though. I am going to be grateful and appreciative of these blessings as I walk through every day of my life and with every breath I take, which reminds me that the biggest thing I am thankful for is each day the Lord blesses me with. Whether it is filled with sunshine or rain, joy or sorrow, good times or bad times, I enjoy every last second I get because it is precious and something I will never get back. So thank you God for this and every day I get to wake up and partake in this amazing journey called life.

So until next time,
Best wishes

(and I hope you all didn't eat too much)
Mel