Thankful

Before we realize it the hours have turned to days and then to weeks, months have now passed and all of a sudden, another year is coming to a close, all in the blink of an eye.

For so many of us this year has been filled with beautiful blessings intertwined with deep heartache. The up’s and down’s of life keep us on this never ending roller coaster. We experience beautiful highs that leave us breathless, followed swiftly by fast lows that bear down on us like all the weight of life’s uncertainty.

When I think back on this year there are so many days that run together like water color on a canvas. Each color melding and blending to create the story that I call my life.

Some colors are bright and bold. I know these are the days where I felt the most joy, the moments that I will never forget. These are the moments in my life that I can’t imagine not having. The gentle tears of happiness and the loud and exuberant celebrations where laughter filled the air and everyone had a smile on their face!

The soft and light colors of the painting represent the quiet moments. The sweet pastels of life’s warmth. The quiet days where the sun warmed my skin and the breeze gently lifted my hair. The days where I quietly breathed in the sweet air around me. These were the days where I found peace.

There are dark and messy colors there also, they are deep and uncertain. These colors represent the hard days, the days where anxiety hovered over head like a storm cloud. On these days the wind was blowing so wildly the ability to stand became hard. I desperately looked for shelter and when I found it, I curled up to stay safe. The world around me fell down. The roof above me came off. The wind swirled around me taking every familiar thing with it. These are the days when I fell to my knees and cried.

There is blank space on the canvas, where no color has touched. I don’t yet know what the finished painting will look like. New colors will be added and old ones will get blended. Every day the painting will look a little different.

I am thankful for my canvas, I am thankful for all the people and experiences that make up the colors. I am thankful for all the colors that have already been laid, they make up my past and they are sometimes hard to look at but, that is where I learned how to paint. I am also very thankful for the blank space because that’s where I get to create. That is the future, the moments yet to be seen. The times that are still to come. Some colors will be so beautiful and other will be dark and ugly. It is all part of the painting that is my life. It is never done, always changing. Bright and beautiful while also being dark and murky, all moving forward through time.

My life is a gift, a beautiful series of experiences that created me, that built me to be the human that I am. I’ve gotten to choose some of the colors and others were chosen for me. I however, am the one that get the honor of painting the picture!

Happy Thanksgiving To Each And Everyone Of You!