Gratituesday

It’s Gratituesday!  Today I am thankful for the surprising mix of people who have brought me here, to who I am and to how I’m living my life.  We’ve moved around the country some during my married lifetime, and have lived in four different homes in the same town over the past fifteen years.  Every one of those moves placed people in my path who have shaped my view of the world,  sculpted an aspect of personality, tweaked how I tune in to events in my life.

I’ve found connections with an eclectic assortment of perspectives and temperaments, shared inside jokes and laughter with assorted comedic sensitivities, talked to, cried with and worked for people I never would have planned to be involved with.  But always, one person’s chemistry and complexities worked its magic on another. I’m so glad we were thrown together for however long, for whatever purpose.

Grand Canyon (Photo credit: YoTuT)

Sometimes it was a bumpy start.  Sometimes a rough ride in the middle made it seem we’d never learn from or help each other.  Sometimes reason was missing completely from the equation and yet the relationship still worked its purpose, like a river slowly carving away at a cliff wall, one grain of sand at a time.

There have been misunderstandings.  There have been mistakes.  There have been hours of missing those I left behind or friends who moved on ahead.  There have been countless joys, hugs, handshakes, winks, dusty trails, songs sung, tears shed, silences.  Relationships of every hue, tone, timbre, color, and pitch have lent themselves to the ongoing work of me becoming me.

Today I am me because of you.  For that I am grateful beyond imagining.