Thoughts on Thankfulness

First, as I begin this post, let me wish each and everyone who read this a very Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving Day!

We should, by all rights, take time every day to be thankful to whoever it is one feels is their guiding spirit, God, Allah, Budda, Mother Earth, whatever name you give to that entity really matters not in the grand scheme of things, but being thankful for all the things that comprise your life - family, friends, faith, freedom - are all things we have around us to be thankful for not just today, but everyday of our lives.

As I sit here and look out the window of my living room to the world outside, because the day right now appears grayish, maybe even cold out there, and not the really pleasing picture we often want to see as we being our day - sunshine and lots of it you know - perhaps the first inclination I might get on taking a peak out through that window is that oh heck, it's a dreary looking day - not pretty, therefore not nice and not worthy of being thankful for it. WRONG! Any day that you wake up can therefore be regarded as a fine and glorious day!

Ok, you say, I woke up, I didn't exactly like what I saw outside and maybe your idea of changing my view about the big old world out there has some merits, but what about me - I have issues, illness perhaps, or I'm unemployed, no one appreciates me or loves me, money problems, addiction maybe to whatever thing I have used in an unhealthy manner, my kids need food, new clothes, new other things, debt is crushing me - what the heck is so darned good about that?

Well, for openers - go back to the paragraph above that and remember you are still alive and maybe you can't change every single problem you see in your life right now - maybe not ever - but you are alive and that's the important thing and you can start to try to make things different one baby step at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day as that old saying goes and neither were we. And the things we view as problems in our lives probably didn't all just come into our lives with a big slam dunk and announcing "Here I am, right now. Deal with ME!" did they? Work on things in a prioritizing manner, little by little, perhaps just changing the attitude at first from gloom and doom to a "Hey, what the heck, I can do it!" and it makes things at least look a little brighter for the moment anyway. Be thankful you have the ability to do that much!

For me, looking around me inside my home, I am again so grateful that I have my family - my children and grandchildren - all who are absolutely wonderful, just beautiful individuals and I am ever so blessed to have each of them as a part of my life. My kids still aren't perfect perhaps - at times in my view, maybe to others who think they know them - but heck, they're still in the earlier learning phases of their lives and trying to get their footing, some stability and I have faith that eventually each of them will manage to get where they want and need to be and will be people who I can continue to be so proud of, loving individuals, helping, caring and good parents, good to their siblings, good to those they encounter in each of their lives too and what more could any parent ask to see in their offspring then anyway?

I am so thankful especially for my grandchildren - such lovely, sweet and wonderful beings they are. I look at them in absolute awe to think that I even had a tiny part in their coming into the world by providing them with one of their parents! I look at them and see also people who are part of my extended family - a few still with me, many who have long since gone on to whatever it is that awaits all of us some day - and it gives me such pleasure then to see the little smidgens of traits from this or that member of that part of my family shining through in some tiny way in each of these gorgeous little people. How wonderful that is to be able to see those loved ones of my life come back to visit me again through my grandkids? Isn't that a great thing right there of which I can truly be thankful?

Although there were many times in my life, over the years, when the last person in the world I thought I should be thankful for and that would be my ex-husband. However, today especially, I can say how thankful I am for openers, that he decided over 13 years ago to find sobriety and because of that, today he tries, albeit from a distance of over 2,500 miles, to be a part of the lives of our three children and also, especially, that he has chosen too that he will try to be a good and loving grandfather now as well. Yes, I am really grateful that he has chosen that route and even that he and I can now speak to each other, not just attempting to carry on civil conversations but that we can again talk and joke and poke fun at one another and even express concerns for each other from time to time that health returns and stays a good part of our lives today. That really is something for which I am especially thankful and I think our kids are also very happy to see that he and I can now interact in that manner with each other and with them in return. Yes, indeed, I am really thankful for my ex-husband now more than ever before - if I would even have ever said before that I was thankful for him. (After all, if it weren't for him in the first place, I wouldn't have these great children and fantastic grandchildren to love and brag about now would I?)

I have so many people who are a part of my extended blood-related family - some who maybe at times might annoy me, others who always seem to stay a part of my life as warm, loving, caring folks who never cross the fine line over to the annoying aspect - but regardless of where they are in that spectrum, they are still part of my family and yes, I love each and every one of them, faults and fine points they have, equally. They are the links to so much of my past and continue to be a very large part of my life and yes, for sure, for each and every one of them, I am most certainly blessed and thankful.

For the members of my family who are no longer with me - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - so often I think of those good folks and how much they meant to me while they were here, with me, how much I miss them still and how grateful I am that I was once able to know them too. To all of them, I will be forever thankful.

For the fact I do have "faith" - faith in the Good Lord above and all the bounties He has seen fit to bestow upon me - and they are so many there, too numerous to ever begin to name because many of them I don't often even think of and regard as a blessing to me from Him but they are there - even when they might seem to be not such a nice thing, those things have often been blessings to me in disguise because they served to give me a different perspective on many things. Oh my yes, for that I am really today very, very thankful!

For the freedoms I enjoy and often take for granted too, I am thankful. I may rant, grump, grumble, complain and yes, at times bitch like crazy about things in this country, in our government, but yet, I should be downright thankful that I can openly (or quietly) do those things! So many people in this world have so little freedoms afforded to them by their country, their governments, that even when I am angry and feel ours isn't doing near enough for the citizens here, I need to stop and think and be thankful that our government even exists and that there are people willing to try to serve to make our lives better. Just because there are people who might be corrupt but are part of our governing body doesn't make the whole place bad or wrong - it just shows us that we all need to work to get things better for ourselves and for each other. Some folks can't even begin to do that so I need to be thankful the form of government we have still exists, even with its faults, its still pretty doggone good and yes, I am thankful for it!

I am ever so thankful that some people years back had the ingenuity and put that to use to invent this little item that sits in the corner of my living room and that I can go to it and through it and the science that brought it into being, I can open my window to the entire world as it is at my fingertips now through my computer and the internet! Some would say - and probably rightly so too - that I am addicted to this machine. But it connects me with so many things - my family and friends for openers and allows me through the internet to make lots and lots of new acquaintances and yes, even friends that way. It has truly expanded my mind and my world and for that, I am especially thankful. (And I pray daily too that the darned thing doesn't crash too!) It has given me ways to learn so much more - especially through one of the groups I belong to here - Writer's Life - and for this silly (at times to me, often to those who read my postings) blog! It keeps my mind at least semi-working and that is something for which I am really, really thankful too!

Some who read this, along with others who know me but maybe never see my thoughts I post here, family or friends or folks who may just happen by and click in here and glance at my words - whatever, however, anyone knows anything about me - may think I am crazy to say that I am actually thankful for the health concerns that have come my way over the past three plus years. But without them, my perspective on life, how I live it today, all the things that come into play there, would not be the way it is today if those "bad" things hadn't happened to me. It is my belief they happened for a reason and in my mind, things have come together there and made me a better, stronger person for that and yes, for sure, for that I am very much thankful.

And that's all I have time to list right now of the things I am very thankful for being a part of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good day and may we all have many, many more seconds, minutes, hours, day, weeks, months and years during which we can all say for this, I am truly thankful!