Five Things I'm Thankful For

Okay. I have just tagged myself from Erin's 5 Things I'm Thankful For meme. I figure that, on this birthday morning, feeling slightly foggy around the edges from cleansing detox, and kinda wishing that it wasn't my birthday, that indulging in a bit of thankfulness would be a good way to set the day on some kinda okay course. So here goes, in no particular order, and probably missing out some really obvious things, but the first things that come to mind:

I'm thankful for a bit of being happy in my own skin. I might whinge about being older, but how cool is it to really not want to be in anyone's skin but your own? I love being me. It is such a position of strength to be okay with yourself. I've got some issues with some of my stuff, but even that these days has me being more inclined to be kind to myself about. It's an amazing situation and one that I had nothing to do with bringing about. I feel much less inclined to be tossed about by the opinions of others. You know when you're with someone you admire and you come away feeling like you are starting to talk a bit more like them, and walk a bit more like them, and you start doubting your own thoughts that differs to theirs? I don't really do that anymore. It's very empowering.

I'm thankful for choice. It used to be more of a scary concept for me when I thought God was a knife edge to be walked. Somehow, these days, I think that life is so much more than just this life. Yeah, we're stuck with the choices that we make. But somehow, somewhere, it just feels like things are much more fluid and flexible than how they look from our limited perspective here. I am thankful that I don't get bogged down in the choice making. I'm thankful that my pig-headed knowing what I want means I don't flit around second-guessing my choices - even if they turn out to be wrong choices.

I'm thankful for blogging. I have had a buzz with this whole blogging thing. Despite its deficiencies, its limitations, its causes for misunderstanding and it's complete inability to give the whole picture, or maybe even half the picture, I have met some cool peeps through blogging, and am having a ball on mine (as evidenced by the fact that I wrote 64 posts last month. That's an average of 2 a day. Scary. Probably 35 or so of those could be ditched, so my hope is that I become a bit more discriminating with the things I post ... or at least learn to use the delete button a bit more :)

I'm thankful for friends and family. My life is a lot more solitudinal these days than in the past. And boy, it is such a cool place to be in!!! :) I feel like I need a lot of down time to process stuff and to daydream. But it makes it even better when I see friends and family - something I don't do enough of, at times. I live out the other side of the city from most of my friends & family, but now that the summer of rock is here, I hope to get visiting more. There's nothing better than catching up with a friend I haven't seen for a while and falling back into the groove of where we left off last time. Good stuff :)

I'm thankful for God and where he/she has led me on this journey. I feel like a lot of the planting that has gone on in years past furnace experiences has led to the spacious place I'm sitting in now. The view is more spacious than I ever thought possible, and is only gonna grow. The sense of wonder I get sometimes is so delicious it squirms my toes up. There are things now that are just done deals as far as God is concerned - he has concreted in certain thoughts and ideas about him that are now non-negotiables. At the same time, everything feels more fluid and flexible than it ever has before. Paradoxical. It means that my faith is more than ever in God than it is in the principles that surround him. Which is freedom unbelievable.

So they're some things I'm thankful for. I'm also thankful for music, my dog, my brain, my heart, books, spacious places, colour, texture, form, function, beauty, stars (loved that, Erin), trees, nature in general, the fact that it's summer, the fact I'm getting healthier and just keep losing weight, being happy in my own skin, not needing things the way I used to obsessively when I was younger, knowing that the things I hate most about myself God is in the process of working on, centreing prayer, contemplative spirituality, Six Feet Under on DVD, love, change, dark forest paths, the sun, the Dandenong Ranges, creativity, trust, compassion, wonder, the God of Wonders, learning, growth, experience. Stuff :)