With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I am hit with the question that plagues my mind every November: ‘What am I thankful for?’ There are obvious answers that come first: My family, my friends, the opportunity to go to school and further my education. While all of these are important to acknowledge, I can’t help but wonder how many times I have overlooked everything that came before them. The people, the places, and the experiences that shaped the life I am now so thankful to be living.
Having recently celebrated my nineteenth birthday, I am reflecting more and more on everything that has made me who I am today. The mistakes I have made, the people I have met, the places I’ve been, and the experiences I’ve had. It’s so easy to assume that who we are is just a reflection of our present circumstances, but in reality, so much of our personality, interests, habits, and perspectives comes from the lives we’ve lived before this one.
The Little Pieces of Our Past
The songs you listen to because they remind you of a particular summer, the hobby you picked up because of someone who is no longer in your life, the little traditions you carry into your adult life without realizing where they started. Whether you put your butter on the counter or in the fridge because that’s always where your parents have put it, the way you make your coffee because it’s how someone once made it for you, or the expression you use because everyone from home uses them. These are just some of the little pieces of our past that carry into our present without even realizing.
Something Doesn’t Have to Last Forever
It is so easy to associate gratitude with the things that are still present in our lives, but what about all the things that no longer are? What about the friendship that ended but taught you a meaningful lesson, the place you no longer live but still feels like home, a point in your life you wouldn’t want to go back to, but that still helped you realize something important? Something does not need to last forever to deserve our gratitude. It is important to acknowledge the moments, people, and places that have shaped us into the parts of us we are now thankful for. Not every part of our past is something to be thankful for. Being grateful for who we have become in light of certain experiences does not mean we have to be grateful for the pain those experiences caused.
The Ordinary Things We Didn’t Know We’d Miss
There are so many moments that we as humans experience without realizing that one day we will look back on with nostalgia. Especially as a college student, I have a lot of nostalgia for the childhood I had, playing outside with my friends, the family dinners we had for every person’s birthday, the bedroom that watched me grow up. At the time these were just ordinary parts of my life. I never considered that one day I would look back and I could experience them in the same capacity I once did. I think one of the strangest things about growing up is realizing that some of the moments we miss the most are the ones we never thought twice about while they were happening.
Growing older changes your perspective and understanding of gratitude. Some of the things I grew up assuming were ordinary are now things that I am so thankful to have experienced. Getting to grow up with my grandparents living five minutes away, and all of the family friends that I consider ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’. There are so many things that surround us as children that are just assumed to be normal, not because we are ungrateful, but because we do not realize that there are people who live without those things. As you grow up you realize more and more that the ordinary parts of your life are things to give gratitude to.
A Thank You to Every Version of Ourselves
So this Thanksgiving season, while we sit around the table and think about all of the things we have to be thankful for, I hope we all remember to think about everything we once had, as well. The places we once called home, the people who were once a part of our everyday lives, and the little moments we didn’t realize would eventually become memories.
I hope we remember that gratitude doesn’t have to be reserved for the things that are just within reach. We can appreciate something without wishing we could go back, miss things without wanting them back, and be grateful for a chapter in our lives even after we have started a new one. Because before we were the people we are today, we were so many different versions of ourselves, still actively living lives we did not know we would miss.
And I think all of the lives we have lived deserve a little gratitude, too.