I'm thankful for a lot in my life... the usual stuff: food and a place to live. Two things I'm especially thankful for today are the people in my life and the opportunity to be educated. I know everyone should be thankful for these things--I hope it's implied that I am always thankful for these things--but I want to be especially mindful of them today.
Last night, I went to dinner with the gang from the South Dakota trips. I don't see these people often. The last time we had been together as a whole was last Thanksgiving. Yet, we have this amazingly intense connection. It's such a beautiful love and respect for one another. Being with them made me so thankful for everyone who loves me in my life. It's easy for me to forget just how many people are on my side when I get caught up in feeling alone. I have amazing friends, though. I have several very different, close groups of friends. They are all so unique and special to me that I can't compare them at all because my life would be so different with out any one group of them. I recently heard a writer speak. He said he worried about how he would divide his love between his kids when the second kid was born, because he loved the first child with everything he had. He said he eventually realized love doesn't work like that. He said, instead, his love just multiplied, and there was plenty of it to go around. My friends make me realize that love works like that. I don't love any of my old friends who I don't see as much any less than I ever did, and I still love my new friends just as much as my old friends. I also used to worry about new friends replacing old friends, but love doesn't work like that. I'm very thankful for the way love just grows and multiplies. I am also thankful for my family. I have to admire the way so many people with lots of differences try to be together, even if it's not always easy. We've all hurt each other at some point (most of us multiple times), yet we just keep showing up to be together. Thank you to all of my friends and family. I love all of you. You make me feel loved.
Now, I feel the need to explain how thankful I am for my education, because school has been driving me insane--to the point of me saying I hate it lately--It's really just the stress, though. I can't take the stress sometimes. However, I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to enhance my quality of life by learning about such a variety of things on a daily basis. I don't ever want to stop learning. I don't think I will, but there will come a time when I am no longer in classes. I won't be able to hear experts in a variety of fields speak regularly. I won't be able to ask them questions. I know when that day comes, I will miss these days.
I can't help but think of Frederick Douglas. We just read his slave narrative for my American Lit. course. His life was totally changed by the fact that he learned to read. Knowledge really is power, and his story reminded me how thankful I am to be able to read and write...not just in a merely functional way, but in a life-enhancing-sort-of-way. My life is truly better because I can read books of all sorts, and I know how to express myself clearly with words. Life just wouldn't be the same with out this gift. I don't ever want to forget how fortunate I am for experiencing equal education despite the fact I am female and went to public schools. I wish everyone could say that, but I'm aware that it is a gift that is more rare than it should be. I appreciate it nonetheless.
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