And I am so thankful.

I cannot tell you when it started, only when I knew it was happening.

Late October, 2010. Not quite at the point where I was on my vacation to Nevada, but close enough that it was a tangible thing. It was like being across the road from a mountain: close enough that you can just walk across the road and touch it, but not automatically within arm's reach. But you know it's there. You know it, because you can see it right in front of you. All you have to do is walk across that road.



Perhaps the reason it happened simply lay in the uncertainty of that trip. For a good chunk of time, my ability to attend lay in jeopardy because of a worsening financial situation. Thankfully my efforts to attend worked themselves out. In the end, the stress drained away and serenity remained.

Somewhere in that period of serenity, I realized I was lucky to be able to go.

In a sense, we all take certain things for granted. When we are young, we take for granted our youth and health. For my own part, I've noticed a tendency to take for granted that things will always be as they are now, or better. Every so often, I have to take a step back and realize that I'm not too far removed from my last year of college, when I had no job, no money, and uncertain future. As unsatisfied with my job as I am some days, I am lucky to have one when so many have none.

I took that step back in a grander sense somewhen during October's end. I realized in some other cosmic reality, it might not be me going on that vacation with people I'd known for ten years. I mean, if life is a journey of small steps, one step out of place can take you from your path. It wouldn't have taken much for any one of us to not be there. And indeed, some people who wanted to be there, weren't, due to circumstances beyond their short-term control.

And as I realized how lucky I was, I became so thankful that it was all going to work out. That I'd be able to reach out and touch that mountain.

I don't think I can adequately say that this feeling of gratitude began in October, though. In the back of my head, it's been growing for some time and now is just blossoming into something bigger. It's somehow appropriate, though, that this journey be realized around the time of the American Thanksgiving holiday. With that having just passed and being fresh in my history, here is a short list of things I am thankful for.

My Dad, Cecil Sears, and my brother, Jeff Sears. I do not want a life that never had you two in it.

My friends from SW-Fans.net and my fellow Deeznites. All of you are awesome. Do not ever think I do not appreciate your presence in my life.

My car. Being able to go from A to B by myself has opened a world of new doors.

My ability to communicate, especially with the written word.

My ability to cook that grows even now.

The music I've found and that I continue to be introduced to.

The sum total of everything else that goes into my wonderful little life.

And last, but certainly not least, how I was able to reach that mountain.



I didn't go over and hug the mountain though. I'm no Captain Kirk.