4 Things I’m Thankful For

1. Being Surrounded by Animals

I’ve always loved animals. When I was a kid, I was that weird student who wanted to share with the class (and/or anyone who would listen or was trapped in a car or school bus with me) how many pets I had and what all of their names were. When I played MASH (the fortune-telling game that revealed who you would marry and other important aspects of your future life such as what kind of car you’d drive) I always included a section for pets and listed exactly how many animals I would own, down to every last horse and fish.

Not much has changed. I don’t have any horses or fish, but I still love animals and am grateful that my life includes so many for me to snuggle and visit and observe and help. I have a sweet old dog sleeping behind me right now and a silly young cat currently running from window to window chirping at something outside, probably the two outdoor cats I take care of or one of our many squirrels. My family members have cats and dogs and kittens I get to visit and play with, and our yard is home to opossums and raccoons and rabbits and gray foxes.

Here’s a 5-minute video of some of the critters who visit our property. It includes fox zoomies.

Now that I’ve started volunteering with the North Texas Wildlife Center, I’ve had the privilege of enjoying some up-close encounters with local wildlife, like feeding baby squirrels, bathing baby opossums, and administering medicine to injured armadillos. I’m thankful to be a part of this organization full of hard-working, big-hearted people doing their best to rescue and rehabilitate wounded and orphaned wildlife.

Interacting with animals fuels my soul. I’m so grateful that I have so many fur babies in my life to love.

2. Easy Access to Fresh Air

Along with my passion for animals comes a general love of nature. Although I’m not a rock-climber or a hard-core camper, I love going on hikes and taking walks and just being outside looking at the sky or taking a few deep breaths or reading a book. I was well into adulthood before I understood just how important outside time is to my mental health. I need windows, but I also need a quick escape to the other side of the window. I recently stayed in a ninth-floor hotel room, and it bothered me that I couldn’t test the weather without walking down a hall, taking an elevator, and crossing a lobby. Checking the temperature on my phone just isn’t the same thing. I’m grateful to live in a place where I can pop outside any time I want. In fact, I think I’ll do that now…

3. My Love of Books

This is not the same thing as being thankful for books, although I am. I’m thankful that I love books. Some people love shoes or jewelry or fancy electronics or cars or designer purses. My favorite things to buy are books. I’m glad that when I splurge on something, it’s because I’ve spent $25 on a hardback book. When I give into an impulse buy, I support an author. When I put “just one more” item in my cart, it means I’m bringing more words into my home, to enjoy and appreciate and keep or pass on to someone else when I’m done.

I could have a hobby that’s unhealthy or a collection that drains my bank account or a craving for something I could never afford. I’m thankful that my heart wants to indulge in stories instead.

4. The Wait

I can be a very impatient person, but when it comes to submitting writing for publication, I appreciate the wait. There’s a lot of instant gratification in the world today. 24/7 headlines, same-day delivery, popular word games that take a fraction of the time of doing a crossword. Think of a question, Google the answer. But sometimes that quick gratification isn’t so gratifying. Such fast results leave us with a lot of time on our hands. What do we do with it? Ask more things, look up more answers, flood our brains with more information than we can handle. Humans were meant to wonder. These days our wonder often gets wasted.

Unless you’re a writer.

The publishing world still moves slowly, leaving time—sometimes a lot of it—between the question and the answer. I kind of like it. The wait gives me time to wonder, to imagine getting accepted, to picture winning a prize, to visualize receiving a rejection, or simply to forget about it completely until a surprise response arrives in my inbox. Whether the result is good news or bad, sometimes it’s nice not to know immediately.

I’ve had a bit of both outcomes recently. I submitted a story to a flash fiction contest in July and waited, wondering, until September when I learned it had reached the final round of judging. Then I waited and wondered some more until I found it did not end up placing in the contest. That’s ok. By then, I’d already noticed ways I could make the story better, and it felt nice knowing my words had made it so far.

Also in July, I submitted several poems to the Poetry Society of Texas’s annual contests. That wait was a bit longer, giving me time to speculate about which ones might catch the judge’s eye, time to feel confident, then insecure, then back again. In November, PST awarded me with three first place prizes. My poems “Blues,” “Reading Poetry During a Thunderstorm,” and “Did I Miss Anything?” received cash prizes and will all be published next year. I was thrilled to hear this news, but it was definitely much more rewarding due to the wait.

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There is so much more I’m thankful for, but these are the ones I want to share today. I wish all my readers a happy, healthy, relaxing week spent surrounded by the people, animals, or things you love. What are four things you’re thankful for this year?