Thank You

Obligatory Thanksgiving post coming up.

This is the first Thanksgiving in three years that I've been able to celebrate in my own house. Senior year (2007), my grandmother passed a few days before, so we were in Marion arranging her funeral. Freshman year (2008) we were in Ft Wayne with my mom's side of the family, since it was the first year anniversary of Mimi's death. Last year we were in Ohio, once again with my mom's side. But this year I get to celebrate the holidays with my family and friends, some of whom I consider my second family. I'm thankful for that.

I could sit here and write out the other things I'm thankful for, like the fact that my immediate family is still here, how my friends have stuck through my life, the opportunities I've had, and things like that. But that's what almost everyone else who is listing what they're thankful for is doing. I am truly thankful for all of the above, but this year there's something I'm thankful for that I've not been thankful for in a long time, if not ever.

Me.

I'm not trying to sound selfish or conceited, but I'm thankful for Dayna. Since I grew out of the phase of "everyone's my friend," I've also left behind that idea of being content with who I am. I've always felt the need to improve myself. I wanted to be one of the cool kids in elementary school, so I did everything they did and threw a tantrum when I couldn't be for some reason or other.

I tried to be like my best friends in middle school, since they seemed to have this sense of self-worth that I was lacking. And in high school, I tried to be the girl that someone, somewhere wanted to be with. But I was never trying to be someone I wanted to be. I was always trying to improve myself so that maybe, if everyone else liked me, then I could like me.

High school was the worst period of self-loathing, for lack of a better term. While I didn't really hate myself, I didn't really want to be me, either. And it seemed like constantly, no one else really minded if I were me or someone else, so long as I was there to listen to their problems and help them out. I did whatever I could think of to change myself into someone I liked, but it didn't really work. So I focused on being the girl that the boys I was interested in liked. As I've written before, I got my self-esteem from them.

And then college hit, and I was on my own. I had to be a person that I was going to rely on, because I had no one else with me to look out for me. I'm not sure if I changed into a better person over these past two and a half years, or if I just started to accept who I am, but I honestly think I started to change.

This past summer is the one I'm most thankful for, because this summer was the one that I started to like me. If you've stuck with me, you know what happened. If not, suffice it to say that I worked on things I've never confronted and came out with a different view of myself and my life.

So this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful that I'm the person I am today. Though it's taken me a good chunk of time to reach this place, I know that at least one person is thankful for the person I am today. Which is perfectly fine for me. If no one else is thankful for the person I've become, then they haven't really wanted the best for me.

My gratuitous post is now done.