Even if Just for a Moment.

I've had a terribly awful amount of emotional or pessimistic blog posts and I kind of want to change the pace a little bit. However, since I don't really know what all I want to say in this, we'll see if I can manage to maintain this.

A friend has told me, from what her mother has said, that the best way to stop worrying is to be grateful. And right now, gratitude is what I want to have the most; worrying will get me nowhere.

I have so incredibly much to be thankful for. I know that pretty much everyone goes through a spell where they're excessively grateful for the things of their life. Frequently, these spells occur after something horrific has happened to them, or after they have lost someone that they care about. People sometimes just list things that they are grateful for, or they just find gratefulness for one single thing or a few of them. However, I don't know what to say. The things which I have to be grateful for in my life overwhelm me. I don't need bad things to happen to me to realize all of the good things I have. I guess I just tend to take them for granted because I have convinced myself that I don't deserve good things.

My family is fantastic. I have been home for almost a month, and I got to see ALL of my immediate family. Both of my sisters, my brother, and my parents. While some of my family occasionally disappointed me, I'm sure I also occasionally disappointed them, too. The sacrifices that all of my family makes in order to BE a family amazes me. Not only that, but the amazing people that each of them are. They're all so funny and so motivated to do so much with their lives. Most of all, they're all really extremely wonderful people. Whether they hold the same beliefs as me, or choose to make similar life decisions to me doesn't really matter. My family has a beautiful way of helping to make me exactly who I am. Whether it be that I have subconsciously picked up their tendencies, like being interested in humor or music. Or if it is the fact that I decide to pursue religion and avoid drinking because of what my family has done in the past. It's a challenge to know exactly what you decide yourself and what your family has decided for you, but I know that my family has paved a decent path for me up to at least a certain point and, after that, I have been formed into a person that gets to make decisions that makes me the best person I can be.

I am grateful for the educations I have received. Both the high school that I got the opportunity to attend, and the wonderful college that I get to attend as well. In high school, I was grateful for all of the classes that I got to take, and the teachers that were passionate about what they were teaching. There were teachers there that inspired me to pursue a career in teaching even though sometimes I might fear that I would not be patient enough. But my past teachers and my passion for learning and for people has taught me that I can do these things and I can be excited about teaching simply because I have had teachers and classes that I loved. High school also gave me so many opportunities to figure out what I was good at and opportunities to show to people that I was actually good at things. Not that people doubted that I was good at things, but everyone deserves a chance to be really good at something. Everyone deserves the chance to be good at something, and with my random self esteem issues that I developed throughout high school (as every teenager does), all of my extra-curriculars and experiences in high school gave me the place to figure out at least in the smallest of ways who I was. Without knowing what I did about myself after leaving high school, I would never have been able to survive in college, or even be able to make decisions about what I might possibly want to do with the rest of my life. I am so thankful for education and all of the opportunities it has given me, and all of the things it has taught me both in life and about myself. I am grateful for college, but I'm not entirely sure why yet. And I think that's okay. It's only been a semester, and I am looking forward to figuring out why it is right for me and what it is doing for me and my life.

Then, I am grateful for change. Last week, and over the past few months, I have realized that not everyone in the world (I know this seems like an idiotic statement) is tolerant. People are so close-minded and so judgmental that it is literally destroying our society. [I wrote a blog about this a few ago..I think it's called Chemistry and Politics if you want to read it..] Some of the people that I used to hang out with were practically brainwashing me because I was friends with them. And yes, I know that I have the opportunity to make my own decisions but it's hard when the people who you care about want you to be a certain way and you never would want to let them down or stray from the spotlight of beliefs they shine down upon you. But after these people became less prevalent in my life, and I realized that I could step out of that spotlight and into the darkness of the unknown, I met people who are hanging out in the darkness as well. In the darkness, you can have your opinions without shining your light in the eyes of others. In the darkness, people can still be judgmental, but there is greater tolerance. It doesn't mean that our lights aren't as bright or that our lights have gone out, but that our lights get shone onto issues that actually matter. We get the opportunity to recharge our batteries and find new sources of electricity and learn to better understand people because we aren't so preoccupied with our own light. The thing is, I have changed over the past few years. I have made friends who are supportive of me finding my own light, and even if we might not always have exactly the same views, they let me have them. I am learning to see that I have a lot of light to offer to other people, but it's only worth having if I let other people have their own lights, too. I sincerely want to shine my light right now on tolerance. I am thankful that I have gotten the chance to change and see things in a different way, and I look forward to the change that is my future.

Of course, the thing that I am grateful for most often, but it is hardest for me to express the most is the gratitude I try to express for my friends. I rant on here sometimes about how I don't know why I am frequently so nice and why I choose to be such a good friend. Well, I am not grateful enough for my friends. The reason that I do all the things that I do for my friends is because they do a lot for me. Like, more than a lot. Even though I go out of my way to do particular things like delivering cookies or Starbucks or, I don't know what else, my friends do an excess of little things for me. They make CDs for me, sometimes text me just to tell me they miss me, they go out of their way to be sure that I know that they love me, or they simply just listen to me and understand me. They convince me that I deserve them, which, to acknowledge how much this is, is extremely not easy to do. Over the years I have spent a lot of time convincing myself that I don't deserve much of anything. But I am grateful for them because I do deserve them. I am grateful for them because they are in my life.

I am grateful for the fact that I have "people" people. There are people that come into our lives who teach us things and who, no matter how much might happen or all we might do to not really deserve them, life wants us to keep them. There are people that come in, and out, and then maybe back again, but we don't really get to keep them entirely. There are people that become a part of us and then leave. But I have people that have become a part of me and no matter the cards that life deals us, I have confidence that these people are a part of my life for as long as life allows. They teach me lessons every single day, and show me the worth that I have in my life. They have taught me that I have so much value and so much that I can offer in this world, and even if, maybe sometime I lose them, whether it be soon or whether it be much later, I know that my life is more beautiful because of them. My life is worth more because I got to share it with them, and I got to have them as a part of it. Even though I hate the whole "we'll be friends forever" thing, especially lately when it feels kind of tainted, I know that there are people in my life who are my kind of people. I don't have to try anything or be anything with them. They are simply my people. And, even though I'm grateful for them in the things I do, I want to be sure they know how grateful I am for them individually. I am grateful that they are grateful for me, and they give me purpose. When I feel lost, they find me.

These things that I am grateful for here give a bigger picture for what my life is.
But, for at least while I was writing this, I did not worry.
I filled with gratitude and filled with love for my life and for all that I have.
So, I must then be grateful for words.

Another horcrux made to be posted and forever lost to the internet.
Yet I am grateful.