Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanks...the American Way

As I drag my feet through the final 6 or so hours that separate me from my Black Friday shopping, I can't help but think about the holiday that is today, despite it not truly being a holiday for me. American Thanksgiving. After reading so many other blogs full of thankfulness, I thought "Gees, I wish I could do that, but I'm Canadian and my thanksgiving has passed. Why would I be listing all that I'm thankful for two months later?!"

...please, feel free to smack me upside the head.

Maybe, just *maybe* I'm still thankful for the things in my life, 2 months after Canadian Thanksgiving? Maybe on American Thanksgiving, I'm still thankful? Heck, going out on a limb here, but I suspect, that maybe, just *maybe* I'm thankful every single day, regardless of what state or country my feet happen to be in, regardless of the day of the week or the date circled on the calendar. My heart is always on that thankful day.

So today, I raid your stores, and I will raid your holiday...

MY THANKSGIVING

- I am thankful to be me. Genuine, wacky, crazy, tumultuous me. Far too often I will do or say something and for a moment (sometimes long, sometimes short) think "Oh Gawd! What did I just do?! What are people thinking??". The wonderful thing about being you, genuine you, is that the people that love you in this life, love you not in spite of these moments of pure crazy, but because of them. And if you're not out there every day being your nutty self, then no one will have the opportunity to love the real you.

- I am thankful for my family. From teaching my dad to "iPod", to the 50,000 texts in 4.2 hours from my sister when her boyfriend is out of town, to the list of 18 different black friday items my other sister oh so desires, to my mom who slips me shopping money with a "shhh", I love my family. I occasionally (okay, usually) want to beat each and every one of them over the head with a wrapping paper tube, but that's family. If they didn't exist, I wouldn't be the wacky, crazy me.


- I am thankful for my home. Not my apartment, not my property, not my house-that-was. I'm talking about my home. That place I return to every night (okay, *almost* every night...don't tell my father), that is lined with pictures of all the things I love, my big feather duvet that I snuggle under at night as sleep lulls me and I find peace in a place that is mine. My solace. My retreat. My place to laugh, and have friends over, to build memories, to start oil fires, sneak my puppy into, retreat into when I'm down, decorate with happiness when I'm high. My home is my end-point, my parking garage, my resting point.


- I am thankful for my fur family, those two wonderful creatures that seemed to come out of nowhere, fit perfectly into my life and that have been there through the worst and the best of times. They are my rock, my shoulders to cry on, my fur to snuggle into, the backs upon which I rest my dreams.


- I am thankful for my friends. I have never before this year, realized the exact depth and breadth of their amazingness. These are people that have no genes to bind us, no requirement to stay, no force holding them close. Yet there they are. Pumping you up, cheering you on, smiling and laughing right beside you. This week has been one of those weeks when I swear, the value of my friendships were just slapping me in the face. From H2's baby shower, when I couldn't believe how important someone I've known for such a short time could be, to Tuesday night when I headed over to H's for dinner and little M demanded I hold her hand as we went downstairs, to watching an inspiring couple laugh about what real love is, to last night, sitting around the dining table with two friends I've known since the dawn of time and being crazy silly me and hearing them burst out laughing. These people make my day, and for that, I aim to make theirs. And sometimes, that just means being there, being present, and enjoying the experience.


- I am thankful for my job. It is painfully boring, mundane and repetitive right now, and I yearn for excitement. But when the pay checks arrive, when the bills disappear, when I wake up each day without the fear of how I will make it tomorrow, I remember that not everything will always be all excitement and mystery. Sometimes, mundane is okay. Mundane means you can focus your life on other things without worry, so today, I am thankful for having a mundane job that lets me dream about tomorrow.

- I am thankful for my land, a little strip of mud and rock and trees, that holds my dreams for the future. It is the accumulation of my blood, sweat and tears, hopes and dreams, and I am empowered every time I step upon it, to use it as the vessel for all the wonder that is yet to stride into my life. It shall be the place where my fur family romps, where my human family gathers, where my friends pop by unannounced when they need cheer or are giving cheer, and where someday, I will raise my own family to know that true happiness is not something you wake up and merely have. It's something you reach out every day to tenderly wrap your fingers around and draw closer. And then throw wide to all of those who come near.


- I am thankful for a fresh chance to fall in love. Breakups are breaking, but they are also a moment to grow, to make the changes and affirmations in your life that you need to be a better person for the person that is meant to be within your life. I don't believe that love is easy, ever. Instead we need to search, high and low, long and hard, for that person who is as stubborn and determined as we are to make it work, who see's you at your worst and says "Hey babe, I got you." That makes you see their imperfections and instead of thinking that you need to change them, you think that you need to embrace them, tighter and tighter. We are going to be our quirky, crazy selves, and then we're going to be our quirky crazy togethers.


- I am thankful for the man in my life, whether he's here just another day, or he's here forever. If you know me, you know I don't do goodbyes, I don't like parting ways, I don't know how to walk away. But this experience has taught me that I have a great inner strength and a right to be loved in the way that I need to be loved. Wonderful, crazy me isn't going to accept half-way, almost, close enough ever again. Instead, I will close my eyes and leap head first into the mess that is building a relationship with someone, and I must say, this someone is every bit of wonder and magic that I've been missing. Now it's just a matter of having a little faith.


- I am thankful for the kids in my life. Having been terrified of these rambunctious little creatures for years, I now find myself captivated by their tiny selves. The way they can laugh and laugh over anything and everything, the way a smile can make a baby giggle, the way they can look at things with a sense of wonder, speak to you like they're years wiser than they are, and how they always seem to know what you need, whether it's an invite to play "farm" with them or to stick you in a corner in a tutu. You never know what you really need until a toddler tells you.


- I am thankful for this blog and the ability to write. Without it, I can't imagine the mess I would be. Writing is my outlet, my blog is my medium, the pen is my way of releasing my inner me, in order to make sense of this world we live in, the feelings we feel, the thoughts we think. I am thankful for all 52 of you who publicly follow the Moonpie and me, for those who hide silently in the background, to whomever it was that created blogs in the first place. I need this. I need this like an addict needs alcohol, heroin or gambling. And for the fact that this is my worst addiction, for that I am thankful.

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