Thursday, November 28, 2013

A Transition, A Moment of Clarity, and Space for Silence

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First, Happy Thanksgiving.

I'm finding that it is important to remember how often we don't remember to let people know how thankful we are for them. We are caught up in our busy lives, and we flash our smiles, but apparently we need a holiday to tell people we appreciate them. As so many of  my friends have posted today -- being thankful doesn't need to be constrained to one day if you're careful enough to pay attention. I find that, for the most part, I am not always careful. So here goes:

I am thankful for the transition not only between fall and winter but of last year and this year. I am thankful for the difficulties I faced and overcame, because they have helped me see my strength when I thought it was failing. Part of this transition was also working incredibly hard to get here -- to this moment, to understand just how far I've walked on this path and  how much I've accomplished. I'm thankful for that moment of clarity which shows me what I am capable of when I feel I've lost my sense of direction. I am thankful for the silences filled with tiny noises that remind me that life completely goes on even if we are stuck. These things are encouragement.

I am thankful for my new home -- Oswego, and for the chance-in-a-million that I would find this college and move here. I have met amazing people, and each one of them I am more thankful for than I know how to express in words -- My mentor, my various bosses and coworkers across two jobs, my teachers and professors -- folks who allow me to laugh with them, regardless. I am thankful for my friends who I would not have met if not for this town or this school, all of us with eerily similar stories to share.

I am thankful for my old home, my extended family, my parents -- the friends I made, while I was in those awkward younger years, that still reach out to speak with me regardless of distance. My old town, and it's old river that flooded too many times with too many winters and  too many storms -- I'm so thankful for its teaching  me that even when there isn't much to be had, we still have each other.

I am thankful for the people I have met who are not connected to either of my homes -- for conversation, for strength, for a sense of determination that might baffle anyone else. A small thank you for teaching me what lessons you probably didn't realize you were bringing. A smaller thank you for crossing paths and threads and words over so much space and through so much circumstance. A whisper of a thank you to all of those people, fighting your own battles, and relating them to me so I can know your stories.

Each of us, in our connections with others, shape the world we walk in. And if that isn't something to be thankful about -- well, I'm not sure what is. So happy Thanksgiving. I appreciate you, even if it doesn't cross my mind to always state it so plainly -- I do appreciate you. All of you. Have a safe and wonderful holiday!

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I speak from the heart when I say, "Bravo, well said!"

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