It’s a really weird year but I do not think there has been a year I have felt more grateful and genuinely happy. I think we find what we look for and I look for good things and gratitude every day. But this year especially, all the useless things that normally fill up our minds, news feeds, and time are gone and all that is left is the raw truth of what really matters. It made me realize I am doing pretty dang good with the things that matter. I do not have many followers on social media, I do not have the best material items out there, picture perfect clothes, or the latest technologies. I do not have a manicure or a professional haircut/color, or even own my own home. I am not the “best” at anything. I do not have a picture perfect family or a friend group out of a 90s TV sitcom. I do not have it all, and I am not sure we can ever have it all, but we can have most of it, right? We can have what matters. Today I am thankful for the things that matter.
Thank you for lots of time in my cozy apartment this year with my boyfriend and kitty and the days we got to stay in sweat pants and order takeout and watch movies for hours. Thank you for the most cuddly affectionate cat I have ever met and how every morning without fail she climbs in bed to cuddle. Thank you for all the dancing around our tiny little kitchen and signing in the shower. Thank you for the sound of rain on the windows and large glasses of red wine and sometimes whiskey. Thank you for music. Thank you for Ariana Grande’s new album turning me into an actual pop star every time I drive somewhere. Thank you for Folklore being the soundtrack to my summer and forever reminding me of the beach. Thank you for the realization that I am not too good for trendy pop music because that made life a heck of a lot more fun. Thank you for Dolly Parton and my newfound love for her this year. Thank you for strong powerful women paving the way. Thank you for giving us the 1st female VP! Thank you, thank you, for voting for what is right. Thank you for letting love win. Thank you for the newfound hope I have in our country.
Thank you for my health and the health of everyone I love. Thank you for health care workers and essential employees and for everyone staying safe at home. Thank you to my job and Chris’s job for allowing us to work through a pandemic and even giving me a promotion during a pandemic. Thank you for being able to do something I love and am passionate about every single day. Thank you for the opportunities I have had to learn and grow because that is what gives me life. Thank you for my financial security and a fridge full of food. Thank you for technology allowing us to connect all the time, but especially in a time like this.
Thank you for huge cozy sweaters, and friends who feel like family and family members who feel like best friends. Thank you for the 1st sip of coffee in the morning and a full tank of gas and a fully charged phone battery. Thank you for central air and hardwood floors and when the person driving next to you slows down at a stop light and is jamming to one of your favorite songs with the windows down and you kinda just look at each other and nod and acknowledge your mutual great taste in music, love you guys! Thank you for Christmas lights and compliments from strangers and seeing the people I love succeed in life. Thank you for underdogs coming out victorious and for ice cold water in the middle of the night when you are super dehydrated, thank you past self for putting that on the bedside table. Thank you past self for washing your face and taking your makeup off even though you were super buzzed and tired, you saved us from a lot of acne, you’re the best. Thank you for those moments when you really just wish you had 1 bobby pin or $1 or 1 piece of gum and you reach in your purse and there it was. God bless those special hidden bobby pins.
Thank you for that forever feeling of home, no matter where home may be. Thank you for days I get to sit around on my moms couch drinking wine and reading mindless magazines and usually watching a movie that makes me cry (in a good way). Thank you for all of our memories traveling abroad and eating amazing food and seeing the world in a different way. Thank you for staying up too late drinking with me and talking about life and laughing until we cry. Thank you for showing me what is actually important and what is not. Thank you for your similar taste in books and life experiences. Thank you for being a working mom. Thank you for showing me what it means to be strong and successful, never judging me, and giving me the freedom to figure out what I want and believe on my own. Thank you for always having an answer when I do not know how to do an adult thing I should definitely know how to do (like make mashed potatoes or iron clothes or something) Thanks for teaching me what makes a good mom, and more importantly a good person.
Thank you for drinking games with my Dad. Thank you for beers at the corner cafe after my waitressing shifts. Thank you for late night pizza from the north end and picnics by the monument. Thank you for all the tear filled parallel parking practice and watching fireworks from the back porch on high st. Thank you for sharing that Gavin Degraw song you love and say reminds you of us. Thank you for playing the guitar and keeping me on your chest and watching the OJ trial with me as a baby. I think It made me a little extra inquisitive (lmao). Thank you for disagreeing with me so much and deciding to love me anyways. Thank you for giving me the most fun step mom ever. Thank you for road sodas and running around Boston in high heels or barefoot. Thank you for all the home buying and decorating advice and that night we sang karaoke in the living room. Thanks for my littlest brother and for teaching me that life will never work out the way I think it will, but always in the best way.
Thank you to both my parents for pushing me and never coddling me. That you for the “suck it ups” and “it could be worse”’s because those truly shaped me and made me stronger and more ambitious than many people I know. Thank you for showing us that divorce can be beautiful and the best thing for a family, no matter how hard and sad it can be in the moment. Thanks for teaching me that love is big and real and messy.
Thank you for my best friends. Thank you for friends I can ignore for months (not on purpose, just because life) and pick right up wherever we left off. Thank you for girl friends who make me feel less insane, or sometimes more insane, but ok with it. Thank you for tai takeout with Amanda and talking about stupid boys and major life decisions in equal measure and all of the comic tragedies we have experienced together. Thank you to all my home friends always cheering each other on as our lives unfold and always coming back to each other no matter how much we grow and change. Thank you for book club. Thank you for that time we ended up at the dark lady screaming “truth hurts” by lizzo with strippers and equally for the night we sat around a cozy fireplace in a coffee shop cafe burning our buts off and sipping classy espresso marteenies. Thank you to Corin for being one of my one and only new “adult” friends and just immediately accepting me and making it feel like we have been friends for much longer. Thanks for getting me and sharing my love for whiskey, music, making lists, and marathon conversations about nothing and everything (the kind that drive Matt and Chris insane lol, those are always the best ones sorry not sorry). Thank you for all of Chris’s friends who are now my friends, for always taking my side when we bicker about nothing (good choice), letting me take over as DJ every so often (more than you should), and welcoming me into your friend family (even that 1st time at fish camp as the only girl oof).
Thank you for driving with my little sister with ice coffee and music and the windows down and for all the eye rolls and making fun of everything I say because that is what sisters are for. Thank you for your courage and strength and boldness, you inspire me. Thank you to my brother who never answers his phone but always shows up when it matters (10 minutes late but still lol). Thank you for your exquisite music and movie taste, I wonder who you got it from. Thank you for your passion, individuality, and whatever it takes to get on stage and rap your own songs (whatever it is, I don’t have that!! You are so impressive). Thank you for my littlest ½ brother who hides in his room playing video games all day now. Thank you for the summer I got to hold your hand and walk around Charlestown and bring you to the library to “read” AKA build lego towers. I can’t wait til you are no longer too cool to be my friend again.
Thank you to Chris’s family for letting me live in your basement for a while. Thank you for that morning when I had a black eye (from a drunk encounter with a tree) and you pretended not to notice lol. Thank you for always keeping veggie burgers on hand. Thank you for all the sunny afternoons on the back deck. Thank you for french toast in the morning. Thank you for all the beer and whiskey you have shared. Thank you for Happy Thoughts every week day. Thank you for Mr. Perry calling to talk about Supernatural and beer and singing to us last weekend. Thank you for card games and holidays and embarrassing moments that you made a little less embarrassing for me. Thank you for inviting me into your yankee swap and fantasy football and your home.
Thank you to the people I do not care for as much too. Thank you so flippin much to all the guys who let me go. I already wrote an essay on you all before so I will save my breath, but thank you so much because you led me to the best possible person and place that I want meant to be and taught me so much on the way. Thanks for showing me the parts of you I wanted and the parts I most definitely did not. Thank you to my old roommate from college. I am so upset with you that I can not even write your name and at the same exact time I can be thankful for the times we had. Thank you for all those moments before we realized we were actually toxic for each other when we were silly and ridiculous and reckless and had the most fun. Thank you for growing up with me. Thank you for those hungover mornings reconvening over a Denali sandwich at the Rams Den. Thanks for the nights we slept on the floor and the nights we spent silently listening to music on tumblr together. Thanks for that special, silent, allegiance. I felt really close to you those days and those days were important at the time, no matter what happened afterwards. I am thankful for the 90’s playlist we made and all the red wine we guzzled and all the deep realizations we had, no matter how wrong we were. I am thankful I had someone to be wrong by my side and that I did not have to do it all alone. I am thankful for my really quick fleeting friend from last year because we had each other when we needed it too. I am thankful because you taught me what I tolerate in a real friendship and what I do not. You were fun and I hold absolutely nothing against you and would welcome you back in a second with open arms but I want someone who will be there, not always, but when it matters, in a way I can depend on them. I want someone who does not need my advice, but values and wants my friendship and input anyways. Thank you for showing me that and for being my other half as we danced and worked out and ate our way through last spring. You were a blast and I thank you and treasure those memories.
Thank you for restaurants and bars and coffee shops (miss you guys xoxo). I realized now more than ever how much I love just dressing cute, getting out in a nice setting and enjoying a delicious meal and or drink, like, that is my love language. Thank you for takeout though, in the meantime, and for date nights at home. Thank you for bubble baths and books. Thank you for my small but powerful espresso machine. Thank you for online shopping, virtual yoga, and video chats. Thank you for youtube and podcasts for filling the space when it’s been too quiet for too long. Thank you for the things nobody can take away, like thunderstorms and the ocean and the sand between my feet. Thank you for the seasons, fall leaves, and the first snow of the year (and my new heated steering wheel). Thank you for all this time to think and journal and feel and reflect. Thank you for that last weekend out and about at bars and breweries that felt almost normal before they all shut down. Thank you for bonfires and our friends who brew their own beer and share it with us. Thank you to Ryan and Chels for driving us crazy wit that harry potter puzzle for months. Thank you for that night we all jumped in the lake at sunset. Thank you for cartwheels on the beach. Thank you for watching the sunrise on hampton beach by myself. Thank you for gregs vodka lemonade induced singing and dancing down the cape. Thank you for Fish Camp. Thank you for kayaking through pouring rain and crying but then that feeling once you reach land and get to get off that flippin boat and put on dry clothes and chug a beer. Thank god for that. Thank you for that moment when we all realized we kayaked over a waterfall by accident and didn’t die lol. Thank you for the day our family got lunch and went apple picking. That was awesome ! And Christie taught me how to kick rocks. Thank you for our little covid fall day. Thank you for our picnic with a grasshopper and a wine tasting where we couldn’t taste the wine and bought it all anyways. Thank you to Chelsea for staying over late and making me take shots with you and cackling to Pen 15 with me. Thank you for the real housewives of (NY, Potomac, NJ, and Beverly hills, Salt Lake city), because you ease my mind and make me laugh and realize how small my problems are. Thank you for blue light glasses and silky scrunchies, and jeans that fit just right. Thank you to clean sheets, and candles, and a classic chick flick. Thank you to train rides, and loud music in the car, and sweet memories, and quality time with family and friends. Thank you for letting me be, right here and right now.
Thank you to all these big and small and shallow and deep and real things, because these are what matter to me.
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