Thanksgiving - I am truly blessed!!

So today I celebrate my 46th Thanksgiving day, and they have all held their own meaning to me.  This year I am most thankful that Bride has tolerated my idiosyncratic dumbassedness for a long time now and we still love each other.  She has overcome some HUGE hurdles this year and I have never been prouder of my best friend.   We lead a great life and are so lucky to have fate putting us together in Annapolis Maryland 23 years ago.  We are as happy as we have ever been and our relationship seems as if it gets better every day – I love that woman with every fiber of my being, her love is my greatest blessing. 

I am thankful for all the friends I have, I treasure each and every one of you.  Some are closer than others but sometimes, I am thankful for that as well.  I am thankful that one of my best friends got a clear PET scan after going through a brutal round of radiation treatments that killed some of his saliva glands as well as his taste buds.  I was thankful that he still held the “Goode's Turkey Fry 2011” which I think is in the neighborhood of a 15 year tradition.  Knowing he would not be able to enjoy the festive meal made me sad, until I reminded him I was going to enjoy it enough for both of us!  Love ya brother and that turkey was KICK-ASS Goode!!

As I sat on the beach this morning thinking about the things I am thankful for all that could come to my mind was how blessed I am.  I posted on FB “I am thankful that I am sound minded and able bodied enough to recognize the truly countless blessings I am fortunate enough to have received - I hope each of you have a great day!!”  I am thankful that I can go to beach and watch the sunrises in the morning, it allows me time to reflect on my life and work through whatever issues I might be dealing with.  Most times I try to just sit and stare, like I would any other piece of art.  Trying to find the meaning of it, not anything else but the meaning, to me, of the art.   That is when I can begin to truly appreciate the sheer beauty of it.  It seems impossible for me to come away not feeling small and insignificant.  I thankful for the time to make those trips to the beach, it refreshes my soul.

I am thankful to all who are or have ever served in the military of our Great Country.  These young men and women are the bravest souls among us and are deserving of our respect and gratitude.  I will say that during my time on the military when I was deployed we ALWAYS had a pretty damn fine thanksgiving meal, I was always thankful of that.  I have made some lifelong friends when I served and I am thankful for Facebook bringing us all back together, at least in a new fangled electronic way.

Seems weird that I could write all day and not cover all the things I am thankful for, none of them could be purchased on black Friday either.  We seem to sometimes get all caught up in the materialness of our lives, those are not things to be thankful for.  Most of them just bring us suffering anyway when they don’t work or don’t work correctly anyway.

Lastly, I am thankful for this electronic shoebox that I can climb up on and pontificate every once in a while.  I hope everyone has a great day and a great weekend!