Giving thanks
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. I'm going to take a short break from blogging to just relax and enjoy spending time with family and friends. Blogging will resume on Monday.
It's always kind of cheesy when people write about things they're thankful for. It seems like it's always the same stuff: family, friends, country, health, etc. Plus, no one's life is perfect, so a lot of I'm thankfuls tend to take on the attitude of "life could be so much worse" (e.g., "I'm thankful I only lost four of my fingers in that accident last month."). So I know people tend to roll their eyes when they see a post listing what someone's thankful for, even if the list is absolutely sincere (as most of them are). Everyone has some cynic in their personality.
I say all this because I want to list a couple of things I'm thankful for. I'm a little self-conscious about it for the very reasons I just mentioned. I don't want people to think I'm trying to write a heart-wrenching, life-changing piece of short literature here. I have my eyes wide open. I know this is going to be cheesy. But I'm a blogger, darnit. Every real bit of online self-consciousness I might have once possessed flew out of my ear somewhere around post No. 250. I don't reveal every bit of myself on this site, but sometimes I just need to express what I'm feeling, even if I'm feeling full of schmaltz. So here are some things I'm thankful for:
- Everyone who reads this blog—especially those who leave comments and send e-mails. Every time I get discouraged and think I'm wasting my time with this, someone tells me how glad they are that I'm celebrating marriage. That's more encouraging than I can express.
- The Internet. I've made a lot of friends over the Internet that I may never see this side of Heaven, but I'm so glad to know them.
- My wife. We uprooted ourselves from Texas into the strange and foreign land of New York. The experience cemented the notion for me that my home is wherever she is.
- My family. They've all moved around since I left home, and none of them live in any of the cities where I spent my childhood. But wherever they are, that's where I'm from.
- My church. I have a biological family with whom I share a lot of love, but I also have a spiritual family that loves me, probably more than I know.
I guess that's as much self-revelation as I want to do right now.
I can't believe I did this, but I counted from my first post to find No. 250. That was pretty self-revelatory, but I think my self consciousness actually flew out of my ear at No. 223. Just for your reference, this post is No. 354.
