Thankful for It All
Let's not be generic. I'll explain the what and why of my gratitude.
To be thankful is to be grateful for something. You do this to acknowledge value in a person, place, or thing that could very well not be there the next day for whatever reason. Everything deserves some appreciation sometimes. In a time where depression, disconnection, illness, death, isolation, unemployment, confrontation, and silence are dominant. You may struggle to find things to be thankful for. Maybe your routine was something that you clung to for purpose in your days, or a reason to smile. You are possibly craving connection, touch, and attention or just a simple daily conversation to bring variety into your new schedule.
First, let me say sorry for the fact that you are without your normal. Second, let me tell you all that is your new normal- all that you should be thankful for now- by telling you what I am thankful for. I am thankful for many things. I won’t get generic with you (family, friends, food, a home). Instead I will explain the what and why of it all. I am thankful for life. Every year since 2015 I have lost someone I love. I thought the pandemic was really going to take out some people, given that strong health does not run abundantly in my family. We made it a joke, my dad and I, just to help with accepting the potential impending loss(es). Yet, somehow no one has been taken by the pandemic. We are all safe and alive at home.
I am thankful for my pets, who have kept me the most company when I have felt disconnected as I dive into the social distancing and work from home culture. They are always so happy to see my back from a run or walk, and all they want to do is cuddle on my couch. I am thankful for time, because I have had a lot of it to reflect on myself and get to know my best friends more deeply than I have ever been able to. That connection is so valued to me because my family is a compilation of people, I choose to connect with rather than just the one I was born into. I'm thankful for the internet, surprise I am millennial grateful for technology.
Without the internet I would not have a variety of platforms to keep me company when connecting with others has been made just a little harder. I go to church online, I meet new friends in my area online, and I “get out” online watching other people in locations I have never been to share their trips while stuck in some foreign place. I am thankful for audible, because we are running out of good television with so many actors not working on their shows right now. Movies are one of my great loves. I appreciate every genre, and being without new content, I have been starved and forced to go back to my first love: books.
I'm thankful for my family, although we are not close. I am not able to spend the holidays with most of them, but I am thankful to speak to some of the more elderly members and know that they are okay and little less alone because of my calls. I am happy to know my family is together somewhere giving love to one another even if I cannot see it or experience it for myself. That thought keeps my spirits high when I am without those things at times. I am thankful for the world, whose eyes have been opened to so much ignorance and inequality and injustice and although I don’t approve of all the actions taken, I am thankful to not feel so overlooked anymore. I am thankful to have people with more influence addressing things that truly offend me and others in a time where we can do nothing else but look and listen. They are speaking loudly, and on behalf of so many people that it truly warms my heart and increases my hope for compassion and humanity in this generation.
To summarize, I am thankful for all the things I have, and all the little things others have to keep them in a good mental space and safe. I am thankful that we are all here today, because there could be so much less of us but there is not. I am thankful for music! One thing that has not stopped in the pandemic. Music has made tiktok the new tv and the energy from music is now constantly accompanied by a visual to accommodate every one of every race, size, and culture. I'm thankful for tiktok because it really did get a lot of people through the first phases of the pandemic lock downs. It gave me renewed energy when I was stuck inside all day and night with nothing but screens to look at. I am thankful for everything I have now, because I have been in a place without it. I remind myself of that daily when I start to get a little down. I have ben without home, friends, food, family, work, or a single thing that was my own and luckily enough I have made it to a place to have all those things and more.
If it is not clear to you, I am constantly thankful, and so happy to share it because it teaches me to look at everything as a glass half full kind of situation. I am truly, indescribably, consistently thankful. Thank you for reading 😉
About the Creator
Jessica Mullen
An avid scribbler and freelancer moonlighting as a journalist and essayist. Hope you like it.
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