Saying Thanks

to you- my family, friends old and new, loved ones i have left behind in my journey, and those i am yet to meet on the path of life (hello!).
wish you all a very happy thanksgiving!

i wish i had celebrated such a day in each of my 27 years, and maybe not just one day, but that every day in the last 27 years had been a thanks-giving one. for i have learnt it is gratitude that is at the root of all things and there were many a good things that happened in these years (“a thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues”- cicero). but the biggest learning for me has been to be thankful for the not-so-good things that have also happened to me.

while today i am grateful that i am free, that i deserve to feel happy and loved and cherished and beautiful all over again, i am also grateful for the last 5 stormy years of my life. they make me who i am today, for the better or for the worse, i do not know. while i acknowledge and feel thankful for all the wonderful people and all the beautiful things that make my days worth living and put smiles on my face, i also feel grateful to many others who were once a part of my life but made me curse my very existence. they put frowns on my face and added age to my innocence, but you know what- i am still thankful to them because it was only when i saw myself in the mirror i realized that i needed to make myself feel beautiful all over again, that i needed to take charge of my life to put the smile back on.

my first american thanksgiving holiday experience has been thought provoking and emotionally charged; i learnt that more than celebrating a tradition or history, we need to celebrate our humanity. sitting at the thanksgiving dinner table, breaking bread with my friend’s family made me feel grateful that love and affection do not abide by nationalities or skin color, they transcend national borders and bridge cultural gaps to bring people together. i felt like liz from “eat pray love,” thankful and extremely lucky. liz’s character moved something big inside me, forcing me to think of my journey from a boring life in mumbai to a girls’ movie night with three women of different nationalities, huddled together in a friend’s den, watching the movie. these experiences will stay etched in memory because they hold so much significance in shaping my life moving forward.

now i know thanksgiving will form the core of my everyday living as I go about this second edition of my life. when i first started out, i knew i will have to unlearn a lot of things in order to gain new tools to deal with situations that i face. i am now determined to unlearn my ungratefulness and make it my second nature; like i wake up every morning, get dressed and go to school, do my work and come back home, i want to be able to say thank you to everything in my life. and everything includes the tiny and the elephantine, the visible and not-so-visible, the loved and liked but also the not-so-liked ones,  the good the bad and the ugly because the bad and the ugly clear the clouds and enable me to recognize the good more clearly.

if every single day, each person capable of feeling any emotion says ‘thank you,’ sometimes more demonstratedly but always at least quietly within, life will not only become tolerable, but enjoyable and cherishable. because gratitude is like a thread that, when woven into the fiber of our human existence, can liven up a dull patch of grey with a dash of red color. saying thanks is reckoning that ‘you are, therefore I am.’

and this day, i want to tell everyone who knows me, has known me or will know me, thank you for being a part of my life; whether you brought me a beautiful gift or an ugly one, i still say ‘thanks.’