Thankful 4.0

Every year I post on Thanksgiving about the things I am thankful for. I am generally a very gracious kind of person. My needs are few and I am beyond grateful for anything anyone throws my way. This year, though, has been quite a doozey on me and my emotional state. Its been full of ups and downs and twists and turns. I'm not gonna lie, being thankful has been harder for me this year than it has been in the past.

However, I am still thankful. Maybe even more so than I ever have been. I am thankful for my little boys this year more than ever before. They have been my driving purpose. My comfort and my warmth. Even the reason I got out of the bed for awhile. They have always known how to make me smile when I was down and make me forget my troubles. This year they have been my purpose. Everything I have done and worked towards has been done with a renewed purpose to better their lives (please don't let my babies suffer other's mistakes anymore). Without those two little smiling faces I would have been a lost person in every sense of the word. I thank everything that is for them.

Then there has been the support crew. My mother and father, who have been divorced for 13 years and hadn't spoken in 10, came together to help my boys and I out. They have done everything from supporting us financially while I found a job to giving us shelter when we had no where else to go to supporting me emotionally and lifting me up when I could hardly bear to breathe. They have held my hand while I faced the kind of meanness I never thought I would have to endure and stayed by my bed while I was recoverign from various ailments.

Its something that I suppose you expect from parents but until you witness it, until you witness that kind of love, you never know just how much you need your parents. I am thankful that they have been able to put aside their differences and take care of us in a way, even thought they shouldn't have had to, that only a parent could.

Of course there were the friends old and new that I am oh so thankful for as well. One of them, Lisa, I have known since I moved to Georgia a billion (okay 15) years ago. We have been friends since then, with periods where we didn't talk as much and periods where we talked more. We got married with in a few months of each other and our boys are all with in months of each other in age (she also has a little miss that's the baby). She was one of the first people I told when T walked out and she was immediately supportive. Ever since she has been there to help out when I needed someone to watch my boys or to read my ranty text messages about love and hate. She has been my sounding board. Heck, her husband even stayed up til 3am to help us move. Needless to say, I am beyond grateful for her and her family.

I am also thankful for all of the other friends both in real life and online that have helped to life me up out of a hole and keep me moving forward. If necessary with hot pokers. There are too many to mention but you know who you are. You are the ones actually reading this. You are the ones that didn't back down and disappear when I needed you most like so many others did. When I needed an ear or someone fresh to cry at when I had cried everyone else out. You helped us with money, you helped us with words, and most of all love. I am so blessed to have each and every one of you.

Of course I have to be thankful for Bob too. Sweet Bob. I honestly don't know who rescued who at this point. Bob came to us at a time when I needed someone 24/7 and the boys needed a playmate. Someone to talk to, someone to cry on, someone to give me a purpose in the middle of the night. Bob has always been a "mama's dog". He follows me around the house watching me clean or cook or whatever. If I am sad, he will come and put his face on me or just lean up against my leg and look up at me. He knows when I need love and he rubs around and around my legs like a cat until sit down and then he will just lay his head either on my shoulder or on my lap for some love or stand there while I lay my head on his shoulder. He also loves the boys like he loves me but he is much more gentle. He loves K in particular and is always very patient with him when he is doing things like poking q-tips in Bob's ears and proclaiming him an alien. He isn't a good guard dog but damn is he a good dog.

There always the little things in life to be thankful for too. I am thankful for a roof when we were so scared we wouldn't have one there for awhile. Even if it was a piece together job there for awhile. I am thankful for my landlord for taking us in and helping us out. I am thankful for food even if it means a little hand up. I am thankful for kind looks from strangers when the boys are losing it in a store and all I can do is cry. I am thankful for my job. I am thankful for you. For my readers. For being patient with me.

I went from being broken and feeling like I had nothing to be thankful for this past winter to having more to be thankful for than my heart could hold. I hope that this Thanksgiving is the same for you. I hope that you can look back over the last year and be even more thankful than you were the last. If not, I hope that the next year brings you closer to it.

Happy Thanksgiving. Now go eat some turkey and take a nap. Tomorrow starts a whole new ball game of crazy. Here comes Christmas. Ready or not.