More than thankful.

I thank.

I thank everything and everyone for all that I am today. Thanksgiving, the day, has come and gone, and I of course felt very good to be spending it with family and good food and all that. And I expressed and thought about all that I was thankful for yesterday. But now I am just thinking about how truly and really thankful I actually am. I honestly feel like I owe the world, my world, to you guys. To the people who love me, who put up with me, who give themselves to me, and in turn get part of me back. I have done a lot of soul searching in the last year, and I have come to realize how important it is to live for myself and always be sure that I am doing exactly what I want and need to be doing at that moment. But what I learned is that what I want to do and be will never be disconnected from the people that I am with. It is the people in my life that really ARE my life. My life and my plans and my being are the pattern, but it is all of you that provide the fabric, the stitching, and the backing of my life quilt. I know I must do what I love, but it is you guys who have helped me to discover what that is. What I am passionate about.

My mom has taught me strength and the undying ability to just. keep. going. Dad has given me excitement and innocence. I feel like if he's around, I can always still be the little girl that I am. Cory has shown me what compassion really is, and that there really are people in the world who would give their life for each other. Bethany has taught me love, and made me realize just how much people care about me, even when I wouldn't expect it. From Quint I learned thick skin, and how to protect myself when no one else will. I've learned individuality from Colleen and how essential it is to figure out what you want and love, and then do it. And Kate has made me understand selflessness, and what it means to do something that is really and truly only for someone else's betterment.

And that's only the people in my immediate family and my two best friends who really ARE family. I could go on and on and on about all the endless numbers of people who have had an effect on my life. I'm thankful for every single one of you who have entered it, left a mark, changed it just that little bit, and then left. I can't begin to describe what that has meant to me, because I'm not even sure that I've begun to understand it. I'm just overwhelmed with how much of me is really outside of ME.

I just thank.