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Well, it’s that time of year again.  I do my best each year to avoid the harried, rushed, commercial feeling of the holidays and instead try to remember to take this time to slow down, be thankful, love harder, and forgive more.  So, here is my list of what I am thankful for.

 

1.  I am thankful for a full tummy and a sleeping blonde babe, who’s tummy is also full and happy.  I don’t know what she’s dreaming about, but I just checked on her, and she’s smiling in her sleep.  So I’m thankful for her dream, too.

2.  I am thankful for a crackling fire that keeps me warm and calms my soul.  Yeah, the central heat could heat the house just fine, but nothing like a fire to warm my heart as well as my body.

3.  I am thankful for the 2 years, 4 months and 4 days that I got to hold the sweetest baby angel the world has ever known.  Tomorrow marks 6 months since I last held him, and I’ve been pretty emotional this week.  However, that funny little meatball crashed into my uterus during a time in my life that I wasn’t sure which direction I was headed, or what I wanted.   He came against medical odds and showed me the way.  The first nine months with him, that private, magical time that he lived inside me, were incredible, but nothing compared to the time he spent on this earth, smiling every day and bringing joy to literally every single person who crossed his path.  I don’t know what God put him on earth to do, and I won’t know until I die and get to ask him myself.   But for whatever reason that sweet baby was given to us, I am the most blessed woman on the planet that I got to hold him while he did it.

4.  I am thankful for the little blond girl with the full tummy.   Boy that girl gives me a run for my money, but she makes me the woman that I am.  That little sassy-mouthed beauty has been my lifeline on a number of occasions, and has probably given me life one hundred times over since I gave life to her.   She teaches me things everyday, she shows me how pure love can be, and she helps me to realize the depth of the love that I have to give.

5.  I am thankful for my girlfriends.   I am lucky enough to be surrounded (even if not geographically) by some of the most amazing women God has ever designed.  My dear friend, P (that’s P for Prissypants, remember!).  She has been there for me in a great many ways over the years we have known each other.   She has supported me and reassured me, and loved me, even in the moments that I didn’t do a good job of showing love to myself.  She has laughed with me, cried with me, held my hand and showed me a vulnerability that I thought was unique to me, but found to be beautiful in her.  My friend Jen, who has served as my own personal encyclopedia of all things I need to know.   She held my hand as I brought my daughter into this world, she breastfed my daughter when cancer inhibited my own milk supply, she helped me to pave my own parenting way, and she stood by my side through every adult milestone I encountered from the day I met her.  She is amazing, and I probably wouldn’t be the mother that I am today if she hadn’t held my hand as I figured out who that mother should be.  Miss V, who is the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever known.  Miss V has been my friend since the day she informed me she intended to be, whether I liked it or not, our junior year of high school.   When I say she’s a disaster, it’s misleading.    She has it together probably more than any other chick I know.  Yet, somehow she does it with the most clumsy of grace, the most honest, pure approach I’ve ever seen, and you just can’t help but want to wrap yourself in her words and give all that you have to her, because she gives all that she is to anyone who needs her.    And finally, C.  A new/old friend.   C showed me the light this year, showed me a woman who is strong, even when she doesn’t think she is.   C showed me that I can be that strong, too.  I can be my own advocate and decide what is right for me, and I can do it with my head held high.   I am so incredibly proud of her, and she taught me that I can be proud of me, too.

6.  This last category is reserved for the person that I am closest too at this point.  I can’t lump him in with the girls, his manhood would be crushed.  I have yet to talk about him, because I’m really not sure how.  I’m not even sure how to describe his relationship to me, except that he is my Rock.  So, maybe we’ll just call him that — since I know you’ll hear about him again.  He came into my life about 6 months before Meatball passed away, but we were more of associates than friends.   2 weeks or so before Meatball passed away, we crossed the line from associates to friends.  Then, when my nightmare began, he showed me what he was made of.   A lot of men would’ve shied away from a woman who had suddenly lost her child, considering that the friendship was so new and fresh and truthfully — disposable.   But he showed me that our friendship would not be disposed of.   He never shied away from the hard parts.   He offered himself to me, 100%, and let me lean on him when I would’ve otherwise fallen.   He was the ray of sunshine through the darkest moments of my life, and offered me everything that he had to give, teaching me life lessons while he did.  I really can’t say enough good things about him, but I hope he realizes just how much he means to me, and how much of a positive impact he’s had on my life.

 

Tomorrow, I will have Turkey with people that I feel genuine ambivalence towards, but as soon as the charade is over, I will come home with my Monkeyface in tow, and she and I will spend the evening in my bed, surrounded by an insane amount of pillows, and watch movies, snuggled together.   And honestly, I can’t think of a better way to spend my Thanksgiving than with the girl I love the most.

 

What are YOU thankful for?

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