Thanksgiving

It is that time of year again, however it began this is the time that is now meant for expressing gratitude for the good things in your life. Also for stuffing yourself so full of turkey you can't move, but mostly gratitude.

It has been a rough year in some very big ways. Strangely not worse than the year before, but still a rough one. Which to me makes it even more important to give thanks. 

What am I thankful for this year?

My family. My mum especially... you may be starting to gather that she is really important to me. She is my best friend and biggest support. I would be completely lost without her, so I am grateful for her and for her health. I am grateful for my dad and the values he instilled in me, even if they do mean I sometimes take the harder path. I am also grateful for the constantly improving relationship he and I have. My brother too, and not just because he has given me a great sister. It may have taken becoming adults but I have a lot of love and respect for him. I am so grateful for the humor he brings into my life. I am also blessed with wonderful cousins like Sam, loving aunts and uncles, and grandparents who mean the world to me. 

My friends. I know... cheesy and cliche so far but live with it. I am so blessed to have an amazing group of people around me, who love me even when I do things like move across the world and then back. There are a few who have really gone above and beyond lately though. I am grateful to Chris and Courtney who have both opened their homes to Quirk and I while we find our own place, as well as for all the work they did getting Quirk to me when I moved to England. I am grateful to David and Vanessa and Becka and Katherine and Jesse for all the support they gave me during the tough month of September, it would have been much more difficult and less bearable without you. I am also grateful to the dozens of others who sent kind words and supportive thoughts and interesting podcasts to help me process what had happened. 

I am grateful to have jobs to return to that I enjoy and am excited about. Even more so since those jobs come with wonderful coworkers who I am excited to see!d

I am grateful for Quirk. While she's been rather expensive to fly around the world, she is my familiar and companion. I love her to pieces, even when she bites me for leaving her. I consider myself so lucky that she had come through our adventure relatively unscathed and quite healthy. 

I am grateful for the technology that made it possible for me to keep in touch with people from home while I was in England, and now that I'm home to keep in touch with the people who are there. It seems kind of materialistic, but I don't mean it that way. I know things would have been much tougher without the ability to talk to my loved ones in real-time with relatively little hassle.

I am grateful for my health. This should probably have gone first, but it's here instead. I am so lucky to have the doctors I have. Not just my mental health though, I am grateful for my physical health which is significantly better than it was this time last year. 

I am grateful for my education which helped develop me into the person I am today and allows me to do work I enjoy. I know I am lucky to live in a country with a good education system and that  I was able to go to University. 

Speaking of, I am grateful for all the ways in which I am lucky to have been born where I was. Access to food, clean water, relative equality, easy access to utilities and medicine, etc. 

I am grateful for the opportunity I got to go abroad and learn more about myself. While in some ways it didn't work out as hoped, I still got to meet amazing people, see more of the world, and learn a lot about myself and my values. Not bad for a few months! Yes there was some really awful stuff, but even that had it's things to be grateful for, including the knowledge that I have such better coping skills than I did when I was younger. 

That being said though, the last thanks I'm going to give on here is for being home. I love this place, and the people in it. I could write a whole entry on all the things I'm grateful for about being back, but will spare you (for now). 

I will spend tomorrow seeing my beloved fur-niece and having a thanksgiving meal with fantastic friends. I know that also makes me lucky. To anyone who actually read this far down, I wish you a fantastic Thanksgiving filled with love and laughter. There's a lot to be thankful for after all. 

P.S. Mmmm turkey.