It's Thursday

As a child, you believe everything will always be the same. Holidays are days set apart. They feel different. You anticipate them. There is magic. Especially in Christmas. Yeah... you remember not being able to sleep, the excited feeling, the way the nighttime hours seemed the drag.

When did that stop?

I woke up yesterday morning. And while Thanksgiving never caused as much excitement as Christmas did, it had always been a day set apart. But yesterday. Yesterday was Thursday.

I got up and worked out and steamed broccoli and chopped onions and peeled apples and made coffee. I enjoyed my day off, as I haven't had a real one of those in a long, long time. It was a good day. But it was just Thursday.

And I wonder if that is a repercussion of blended families and divorce. Of sickness and working on holidays. If we lower our expectations in order to keep from being let down. Because things really aren't the way they used to be. Things changed, and no one really prepared you for that.

Or. Maybe it is just a part of getting older. Realizing that Thanksgiving is really just a Thursday. And Christmas is really just the 25th of December. It changes the way I think. The way I perceive, the way I go about my day. Holidays require some intentionality. But the pressure's also off. It's Thursday. Make it a good Thursday. Be thankful... not because it's Thanksgiving. But because it's Thursday.

I stopped to think about what I was thankful for yesterday. Chin-deep in text messages and emails and phone calls from people saying, I was who they were thankful for. This blew my mind.

I am thankful, above all else, for my sisters. We yell at each other, fight and carry on. We always have. Let's be honest... we probably always will. But when it comes down to it, and we're relieving all our holiday-induced stress by teaching Kat how to dougie in the living room.... they're the best in my life.

I am thankful for my parents. And their new spouses. Everyone has handled this transition with a lot of grace and understanding.

I am thankful for my uncle. And his wife, my aunt. For being my friends. I am thankful that I can look at him from across the room and, without saying a word, we can have a full conversation.

I am thankful for my other uncle... who I talked to on the phone yesterday. He doesn't know it, but I crave his approval and his love as much as my own father's.

I am thankful for the opportunity to go back to school. (I have to repeat that a few times, because today will be spent doing homework, and I'm just about worn out.)

I am thankful for my job. As much as I hate it, I know how lucky I am to have one and to have one that is so flexible.

I am thankful that I woke up in a warm house this morning.

And that I'll shower later with warm water and that if I needed a drink right now... I could go get clean water from the faucet.

I am thankful that I'm not sick. This time last year I was taking medication daily and feeling pretty miserable. I thought I'd never get better. Glad God sees farther than that.

I am thankful for my community. A patchwork of people, they're all so different. But they are why I survive. I hope I bless them as much as they bless me.

I am thankful for my car. Even though the stupid battery light is on and I think there's a leak in the driver's side door. It gets me where I need to go and every month I have enough money to make the payment. I am thankful for that.

I am thankful for Donald Miller.
And coffee.

I just had a strange thought.

I am thankful that I am single. That for the past couple of years, I have been alone. Learning who I am and... trying.... to avoid mistakes. Listening. Waiting. One day, I will be thankful for a husband. I'm thankful for him today - wherever, whoever, he is. But today I'm thankful that God has given me what I need to be patient. Bittersweet.

I am thankful for Tuesdays and two little boys named Alec and Justin.

I could keep going. A stereotypical I-Am-Thankful-For list. But it's true.

Things are hard right now.

But now it's Friday. And I'm still thankful.