Everyone was posting their feeling of gratitude the other day on the US holiday Thanksgiving, and I have to say I was really rather irritated by it… Not because they were being all grateful, not even because I wasn’t, more because I wasn’t there to be with them… I know that sounds terrible, though that is how I felt…
I am grateful for so much really… For instance this morning I was blow drying my hair and thinking of my housemate that had been so kind as to have let me use his hairdryer, since mine had overloaded a couple months ago… I am grateful that I am not the one who has had to take the smelly garbage out to the street… I am grateful, to have made friends with those people who live in my building, and I am grateful that when they irritate me and I am a bit sharp, that they forgive me and do not stop taking to me all together, and I am grateful that when they are rude to me that I am able to put it aside and forgive them as well… I am truly grateful for the smile that lights up the people I love, when I walk in a room and they are happy to see me ( a phenomenon that to this day completely blows me away)… I am grateful for all those who have said they will miss me, which for me means I will be in their thoughts and how does it get better than that??? Really how can you ask for more than the joy of knowing you have made such an impact on someone that they will remember you???
Someone told me this story once, about a bucket, it goes something like this… If you want to know your impact on the world get a bucket of water and put your hand in it, splash around, make all the disturbance you like, and then remove it, this is your impact on the world… Words cannot express my horror of the truth of this message… That no matter what I did, or was in this world, I would not have any impact, and that I am completely expendable… I still cannot bring myself to hold this as true for me, and maybe in the grand scheme of things I am easily replaced… For me you are not, for me each of you makes an impact on my life, for me even when I forget to say so, you are my world, my love, my life… Should you see fit to replace me, I have found that I cannot replace you… I can move on in my life and on my journey make new friends, new loves, new family, have new adventures, I cannot however replace you, you will forever have made an impact on me and my journey… I will have changed irrevocably through knowing you, through loving you, through traveling (however briefly) with you on this journey we call our lives… So when I say that I am truly surprised when your eyes light up when you see me walk in the room, it comes from a place of true and deep gratitude that you have found me worthy of the light that brings you joy, and thereby shines through the smile you share with me… Thank you from my heart for all that you are…