My Thanksgiving List.

• I’m grateful for my dad, who has always been there for me even when he needed someone to be there for him, and for always having faith in me even when I didn’t offer the same luxury for myself. He taught me everything I know and he’s part of all that I am today, and it’s because of his altruism and sense of righteousness that I have a hero better than all the crap they sell in Disney fairytales. My Kryptonite and the source of my strength, if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t amount to anything.
• I’m grateful for my ability to see the hilarity in misfortunes, for gallows humour has gotten more people by than history dares to admit.
• I’m grateful for coffee that has always been there for me, regardless of how good or bad the day may turn out to be.
• I’m grateful for the little things and my ability to see them wherever I turn, as little as funny online series or a good book, they fuel me when I most need it and they never bail.
• I’m grateful for my ability to forgive, and how it comes naturally to me to not hold a grudge. Even though most of the time I may have to not let people know it because it’s for the best, it’s a blessing not to have it in me to hate someone, no matter how much people may perceive it as weakness, I regard it as true strength not to let things stick on you, eat away at you and eventually change you.
• I’m grateful for all the assholes I met in life, for they taught me how to handle things the way people do in the real world, how to hold myself out there, how to be one when I need to and more importantly, how to recognize them from the head start and know better than to let them into my life.
• I’m grateful for all the friends I have, or had and lost, for they left me with some good memories that have substance, albeit bittersweet, and remind of me of the choices I have to make everyday.
• I’m grateful for all the bad choices I made, for they taught me how to be  responsible for the consequences, they made me aware of the existence of consequences, and gave me enough ammunition to recognize the good choices and make them more often, and handle the bad ones more competently.
• I’m grateful for good conversations whenever and however they may come or have come, for they’re the stuff of life.
• I’m grateful for my sense of conscience, and the fact that I now realize that goodness is a choice you make everyday and never quite turns into a habit.
• I’m grateful for my head, for despite all the nights it tortures me and all the days it beats me up, it has never let me down and never shut up no matter how little I listen to it.
• I’m grateful for my ability to see through people, I now know better than to let its little hints go unnoticed.
• I’m grateful for honesty, and the fact that truth hurts. I’m glad it does because it keeps me grounded and shows me everyday how succumbing to delusion is the easy way out, but never the right way and never an option.
• I’m grateful for how I turned my life around, for no matter how much it may have hurt, I now know that I chose the right path.
• I’m grateful for my utter inability to give up on things. My lack of acceptance changes things when other people give up on it.
• I’m grateful for work, it is the only straight line in life’s loopy parabola.
• I’m grateful for how I always blame myself when things go wrong, for even when it’s not true it helps me become a better person, and now I see that it’s not such a bad thing because ego has always been the one thing that had people hit a plateau and go down from there without realizing it.
• I’m grateful for piano, and the fact that now  I know there’s one at UNI and the music room is available everyday from 9 – 11.
• I’m grateful for all the temporary friendships that got me by, I now know better than to depend on another person for comfort when it’s better to turn to yourself for consolation.
• I’m grateful for change, it has kept the engines running despite all the gritted teeth grinding in complaint.
• I’m grateful for my grandma, for she shows me how age has nothing to do with having fun.
• I’m grateful for my family, they give me examples to look up to that are actually in my life, and they show me that you have the choice not to let life change you no matter what it may throw at you.
• I’m grateful for being eccentric, it has kept things interesting and it’s a blessing to know that I’m not caught up in the all singing, all dancing crap of the world as much as everyone else, it gives me a chance to step back and watch the act, and helps me decide on things that people wouldn’t give a second thought.
• I’m grateful for the internet, for it made knowledge easy to come by.
• I’m grateful for the chances I was given and the opportunities I had, they made me work to be better even though at the time I only thought they served as a reminder of all the things I’m yet to learn.
• I’m grateful for late night walks with my dad, they keep me grounded and they remind me that the world never stops turning for anybody.
• I’m grateful for all the good people I have in my life, you give me hope because it’s never easy to stay good when everyone around you is an asshole.
• I’m grateful for Kurt Vonnegut, you’ve left enough literary heritage to keep me occupied for now.
• I’m grateful for Jazz, Blues, Neo-Soul and Rap. It’s true that you haven’t managed to eradicate all sadness in the world, but you’ve managed to push all that is melancholy in one corner of the room and make it more habitable.
• I’m grateful for never losing my ability to care about someone, no matter how many reasons I was given to know better.
• I’m grateful for being impulsive, it’s given me the initiative gusto to jump into things that people wouldn’t dare to consider, and made life a hell of a lot more fun.
• I’m grateful for all the stupid things I’ve done, they’ve given me great stories to tell the grandkids and amuse me when I’m old and frail.
• I’m grateful for all the things that didn’t work out the way I wanted or expected them to, they made way for better things to come and taught me to do without a lot of things that others are wrapped up around.
• I’m grateful for logic and my sense of skepticism about the givens of life, for they have taught to me to look for hope objectively and not turn into another brainwashed idiot prancing his way off a cliff. It has made me not settle for less even when more was nowhere to be seen by actually working on making that happen rather than waiting and wishing.
• I’m grateful for my balls, even though they got me into a lot of trouble, I wouldn’t have had it any different.
• I’m grateful for all the shitty people I have in my life, you show me everyday who I never want to turn into and are a constant reminder that I’m making the right choice and that the shit that I have to go through because of it is worth it.
• I’m grateful for detachment and my belated reactions when shit hits the fan, they’ve given me the chance to think of a solution when everybody else is panicking.
• I’m grateful for the mess in life, it reminds me every day that importance is an assigned value, that nothing is a given, and that people have more control over their life than they care to admit just by the way they choose to handle things.
• I’m grateful for my insomnia, it has added hours to the day and gave me a chance to learn more and get more things done.
• I’m grateful for being content with my life, and being happy more often than not. It’s a lot more than many others were offered.
• I’m grateful that the answer to life, the universe and everything is not available, for if it were, people wouldn’t have a reason to live.