Giving Thanks 2017

Anoth­er Thanks­giv­ing is upon us!

Out of all the hol­i­days, Thanks­giv­ing is one of my favorites. It’s less con­sumer-dri­ven than oth­er hol­i­days despite the retail mar­ket’s best efforts, the weath­er isn’t super cold, I get extra days off from work, peo­ple type what they’re grate­ful for all month long online, and there’s tons of deli­cious foods I only get to eat once a year. I mean, I could make them at any time in the year but that takes work.

In no par­tic­u­lar order, here is my list of things I’m grate­ful for this year:

My cat

I lost a piece of myself this year when he went miss­ing for two weeks. I could­n’t bear the thought my floof­ball went miss­ing due to my neg­li­gence. My bur­den was lift­ed when I wran­gled him home, but his adven­ture taught me just how inte­gral he is to a hap­py life. This is a fore­shad­ow­ing at how sad I’m going to be when he cross­es the rain­bow bridge, but we’re lucky many years togeth­er before I need to start prepar­ing myself for that.

Every time he snug­gles with me at night, greets me at the door when I come home, or does some­thing sil­ly that makes me laugh I am remind­ed of the trea­sure he is and I remain eter­nal­ly grate­ful Bartholomew is my kitty.

My house

I might’ve made a few rook­ie mis­takes, but few things com­pare to the sat­is­fac­tion I get from look­ing at my house and know­ing I own it. As some­one who lived in either shared liv­ing arrange­ments, in oth­er peo­ple’s hous­es, or apart­ments, it’s a real­ly big deal to me. Not only that, but I am pay­ing rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle to live there com­pared to past places.

It is a beau­ti­ful house and I look for­ward to the future when it’s all fixed up and at it’s best!

My career

I would­n’t be where I am today with­out my career. If I did­n’t have this job work­ing for this com­pa­ny I would­n’t have been able to save so much for retire­ment and be at this point so ear­ly in life. I work for a great com­pa­ny that treats me well. I haven’t always had the best jobs work­ing here, but slog­ging through the bad jobs taught me to appre­ci­ate the good jobs even more than I oth­er­wise would have.

My network

I have a robust net­work of friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues, for­mer col­leagues, advi­sors, and for­mer teach­ers. New and old, I appre­ci­ate each per­son I can call on the phone and have a chat. It does­n’t mat­ter if that chat is about what their sil­ly dog did the oth­er day or deep life advice. I have a pro­found sense of grat­i­tude to know so many awe­some peo­ple. Thanks for being in my life!

My boyfriend

Last but CERTAINLY not least is my amaz­ing boyfriend. I had no idea at the begin­ning of the year I’d be with some­one so great. Our rela­tion­ship was worth wait­ing for (even if I did wait a bit impa­tient­ly at times). We com­ple­ment each oth­er nice­ly in pret­ty much every facet and encour­age each oth­er to be a bet­ter per­son every day. I look back on being sin­gle and when I was in oth­er rela­tion­ships and mar­vel at how sol­id and healthy this rela­tion­ship is. I am incred­i­bly grate­ful I have it so good right now!

I hope every­one has a hap­py Thanks­giv­ing stuffed with great food, great com­pa­ny, and great times!

Read­ers, what are you doing for Thanks­giv­ing? What are you most grate­ful for this year?