Wanna Know Why I'm Happy?

November is the official month for saying thank you. Isn't that a funny thing? "Hey guys, guess what? It's November! So lets all grow beards and say thanks." I mean, gratitude is a wonderful and utterly essential thing. Don't get me wrong. But while it may seem easier to give thanks in a season filled with pumpkin pie, roasted turkeys, falling yellow leaves and a whole lot of family time, maybe we should make it a year round thing! Let's say thank you for the green grass in the summer and the gloves in the winter. Let's say thanks for friends that are leaving and friends that have just appeared. Let's be grateful for your dad calling and talking you through a rough night on a lonely college campus. Let's see the goodness in laughter that comes to us everyday. Let's be grateful for our lives and everything that comes along with them! GRATITUDE CAN BE FELT EVERYDAY, AND IN EVERY WAY! *getting off my soapbox*

However, seeing as I have so many things (millions of things!) to be thankful for, I would like to take this traditional thanks-giving time to truly express my gratitude for what life has brought me. I don't see myself as a very important or wonderful person, but when I step back and look at what life has generously provided for me, I feel as if I have been undeservedly rewarded. I mean, wow. I have a body that works. It may not be as skinny as some peoples' bodies. I may not look as freaking hot in certain things as others do. But it's my body and it works and I love existing within it. I have a mind that can think. My thoughts are not your thoughts. My thoughts aren't the same as the girl in the back of my writing class or the parents that raised me (and so well, I may add! Check that one off the blessing list!). My thoughts are MY thoughts! How cool is that? No one knows them, and no one has to agree when I choose to share them. I get to think! Everyday! I have the ultimate form of expression, right beneath my nose (quite literally). I have short hair again, which is cool. I have a family that loves me enough to understand that I have bad days even during the best of times. They don't roll their eyes at me when I cry about being lonely as I am surrounded by friends. They don't expect me to be anything more than I am. And that is something that has gotten me through the aforementioned rough days. Did I mention that I have hard days? Well, I do. And I'm grateful for those. Nothing can be good without badness. Nothing can be happy without sadness. So to those annoying and sometimes gut wrenching bad days, I tip my hat to you. Thanks for being there. Thanks for going away, as well, but thanks for existing in the first place. I'm grateful for my education. I may not appreciate it as much as I should all the time. I may sleep through class occasionally. But the desire to learn hits me with a certain intensity when I see the lack of educational opportunities for girls around the world. There are news reports of little girls never learning how to read. Never learning that their thoughts are their very own. Never knowing that there is more going on than what people have told them their entire life. Never understanding that they have power beyond measure. And that is what makes me grateful for education. Because I have it-it's right at my fingertips. And I am a girl, and how many girls can say that? From the view of the world, not many. I am grateful for my books, and the fact that I hate e-readers. I may be a blogger (quote on quote blogger), but someday, I have promised myself that I will write my words down on paper and provide them to people so they can touch them and feel them and experience them without the confines of a glowing screen. I'm blessed to have roommates that love me even when I am angry. I am blessed to have a walk way surrounded by trees that I walk under on my way to work everyday. I am blessed to have a lamp that doesn't wake Amanda up every time I go to bed later than her. I am blessed to have music. I am blessed to have words. 

But most of all, my gratitude for my Heavenly Father is what keeps me going. My unending debt to Him is what keeps me on the right path. He gave me the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He gave me the voice to share it. He gave me a way to provide others with the same blessings that I have received through this marvelous work and wonder. And so, this Thanksgiving is not just a time of gratitude for me. It is a time of sharing what makes me happiest.