thank you

have i told you lately that i loved you?

i do.

i love you for donating.
i love you for telling me you were going to donate.
i love you for even thinking of donating.

i love you for donating good thoughts and support and love
because they count
just as much.

--

this year, i am learning gratitude. i am finding it everywhere.

i am humbled by the people i meet these days, by the struggle i see in my friends to be their authentic selves. i am in awe of the ways i feel my life is suddenly cracking wide open, my lungs reaching to catch the wind.

this is gratitude swelling in my chest, bursting out every time i smile or hug my mother or talk to my sister's stomach.

and so i implore you to be grateful. be grateful you can breathe and walk and smell the morning dew as the sun streaks across the sky, bringing light. be grateful for your health, for the ease with which you breathe.

i have hated my body for its failings for a long time. but today, i am grateful for the health i have. i'm grateful for the ways i can stretch, pull and bend it, the ways i can move my body in the ocean and across the sand with two laughing little girls following me, yelling my name.

i'm grateful for fear for taking me as far as i could go and then suddenly letting me free to speak my mind, to be authentic.

i am grateful for having the freedom to look inside myself for a good, long time. i am grateful having learned that when you do this, you gain the ability to connect with others in invaluable ways.

and i am grateful to my friends and family, and for the lessons i learned from my family at First Descents. i am grateful for their strength, from which i borrow daily.

so, thank you. all of you.

thank you for being here.
thank you for being the hand in the dark.
thank you for being my team.