Thankful

I don’t know where to begin with this one. How to put into words without sounding trite or clichéd. I’m thankful for family and friends and all the things! Yes, we know. What am I really thankful for?…Really?

I’m thankful that my lungs work. I’m thankful that when I run I can feel my heart beating, pumping blood through my veins, feeling my body work. I’m thankful for physical therapy and avoiding hip surgery. I’m thankful for conquering some of my fears and finding out things aren’t nearly as scary as I can make them out to be in my head. I’m thankful for normal numbers on my bloodwork panel. I’m thankful that for the first time in my life, I feel like I have a healthy and normal relationship with food.

I’m thankful for each blissfully normal day that starts and ends with every family member safe and healthy and warm at home in bed. I’m thankful for the quiet moments holding my toddler and the way he rubs my arms as he falls asleep. Each time he reaches for my hand or asks for my help, especially because my oldest doesn’t do that so much anymore. I’m thankful for dance parties with my oldest. I’m thankful for my husband and all the sacrifices he’s made for our family. I’m thankful that I’ve kept my severely immunocompromised grandmother safe from Covid all these months.

I’m thankful for job security and food security. I’m thankful for my church community and what a warm, welcoming, safe place it is for all of God’s people. I’m thankful for Jen Hatmaker, Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle, Elizabeth Gilbert , Rachel Held Evans, and Sarah Bessey for helping me to learn my worth, my place, my boundaries, my strength, my voice, my potential and my gifts. I’m thankful for Austin Channing Brown, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Nicole Walters for their leadership, teachings, and education in history, peacemaking, good troublemaking, and reconciliation. I’m grateful that now that I know better, I will do better.

I’m thankful for Youtube haircutting tutorials. I’m thankful for Trader Joes and their cinnamon swirl bread and truffle potato chips. I’m thankful for Zoom game nights. I’m thankful for lazy sundays and rainy day naps with my dogs. I’m particularly thankful for washable rugs because of the aforementioned dogs. I’m thankful for the public library and checking out kindle books online. I’m thankful for puzzles, particularly the Home Alone puzzle my husband hunted down for weeks so we could have it for Christmas. I’m thankful for wagon walks. I’m thankful for Chrissy Teigen Banana Bread (it really is as good as the internets says it is). I’m thankful for slipper socks, my favorite sweatpants and sleeping shorts. I’m thankful for each moment I am truly present and in the moment, undistracted by my phone, social media, work, drama and fully focused on my family which can be so difficult. I’m grateful for quiet moments, the thin moments where I feel close to God.

And I will never not be grateful for a hot cup of coffee, particularly and very specifically in the mug my son picked out for my birthday.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re well. I hope your family is well. I hope you stay safe and healthy. I hope that despite this years many, many challenges, canceled plans, dashed hopes and expectations; that somehow the good outweighs the bad. I hope that your cup (whatever it’s filled with, water, coffee, booze?) it’s half full and not half empty. That it’s maybe even overflowing.

Happy Thanksgiving.