GIVING THANKS

It’s Thanksgiving time and everyone is preparing to celebrate. Families are coming together and food is being prepared by the best—and the worst.  As a child I remember celebrating thanksgiving with so much joy in my heart and most importantly my stomach. I would wake up early in the morning to clean the house. I remember the first few hours of every Thanksgiving Day smelling like bleach and Pine Sol. The smell of fresh lemons, Apple Cider Vinegar and heavy cleaning supplies that picked fights with my asthma surrounded the air. Later on that day the sweet and strong smell of turkey, ham and baked beans as well as other food that made my mouth water, man was I ever so thankful!

To fast forward to the nights of thanksgiving past, before I had to grow up and work black Fridays and the pilgrims’ night celebrated before they stole the Indian’s land. I would set up the table and take family pictures with my cousins and then prepare to give thanks. Not to the Indians, but to God. This was the longest prayer of the year and it drove me crazy as my stomach into knots.

What was I thankful for??? Um, that was what every single person at the table had to announce to the world. It tickles my soul now to remember that because now my family is sitting in a different state doing the one things that I dread doing right before I stuffed my face at during this time of year.

So what am I thankful for?? Everything. No really, everything that god has placed before me, allowed me to witness and everything that he has brought me through. I am thankful for my family, my mother and father are alive and healthy. My big brother is doing just fine and my little brothers are living la vida loca, and my mini me (just a darker version of me) my sister is living the fab life, thank you god! They are all protected.
 I am thankful my health, as a child i was often sick for a numerous of reasons for asthma to allergic reactions that could have killed me, but i am still here. alive and moving forward in a positive direction. i am thankful for my job, because although i go through a lot to be there i could be without one. i think about that daily and i thank god for blessing me with the ability to get up and work.
I am thankful for having a car, a car that runs. that means a lot to me because i have had many moments in my college life where I didn't have transportation and i had to walk everywhere i went. that was a really hard time in my life and i am glad to put it behind me, well for the most part.
I am also thankful for all the opportunities that God has put forth in my life. he has brought me through so much and there was a time when i didn't want to continue, but he kept me. I am also thankful for my mind. at this point is may seem to some that i am just rambling on but no really, i am thankful to have a sane mind and heart. So many people in this world have been put in serious situations where their conditions of life have allowed them to lose there sanity. i am thankful for the ablility to keep my mind during my struggle and hardship.
Although, this is not something i would have announced at my mother's Thanksgiving dinner table, I am thankful for all the heartbreaks i have faced. Without those heartbreaks I would have not been prepared for the greater things in life that i deserve. i would not know what being treated good feels like if it wasn't for the the heartbreak of the boy who treated me like i was just a piece of candy.. i wouldn't know what independence feels like if it wasn't for that disappearing "BEST FRIEND" who couldn't face me. I am thankful for all of the let downs i gave to my sometimes i love you dad. i am truely happy life is moving forward for us but without the damages of my past daddy issues i would probably be a different kind of person.
I am thankful for love. i don't have a lot of people around but those i have in my corner i know truly love me. And most important, i am thankful for self love. It took me a long time to learn to love  and accept my self for who i am and i thankful for the love and patients god as with me because i have often questioned my worth and i am still on the verge of figuring out where i belong.