I have a great deal to be thankful for in my life. This existence is imperfect. I don’t expect perfection but I expect to find things worth living for and I am thankful that I have found that in the people I love and fill my life with. Old friends have drifted back into my life’s path and I will do what is in my power to maintain those friendships. I am thankful for what they have meant to me. I am thankful for having had a childhood that wasn’t worse than what it was. I could’ve had things much worse. I may have never escaped Harlem under different circumstances. I am thankful for the man I was fortunate enough to call father for 12 years before he passed on. I still remember how I thought he just went away and if I was lucky I’d see him again one day. Maybe that is true in some sense.
I am thankful for the love I share with the beautiful woman I hold in my arms each night. I was fortunate enough to find lasting love twice in my life. The first one failed and I take responsibility for that. I played a large part in that failure. I gave up. I don’t regret that. I am thankful that the marriage brought me three wonderful kids as this new partnership has brought me three more. I’m lucky in so many ways in my life and I need to do more to show the people closest to me that I recognize that luck and see them as a benefit and not a burden.
I am thankful I’ve been able to keep this blog going so long. One true failed day in several thousand means I’ve done pretty good so far. I’ve been at this for a decade and I think it is natural to continue and thus unnatural to stop–even when the words don’t want to come. Once upon a time I used to tell stories in bed. I would dream up characters and talk about their lives. These stories came from that place of stories I was once linked to. Lately I’ve begun to feel that the connection to that place is possible to restore. I am thankful for belief, for without it I would not know how to proceed.
I am thankful for my health and my mind. I don’t remember as many things as I should, and I am sloth for the most part, but I still have the ability to change that. Not everyone does. I’m lucky for that ability as well. I lack motivation on a molecular scale, but I am working to change that. I’m thankful this too is possible.