Thankful

I am thankful. It really is that simple. I am thankful for the pain I am going through. Chad is worth every throb. I am thankful for my insane kids. They know Mr. Witt is having a ‘hard day’ and somehow simultaneously try to take care of me while not following any of my directions. I am thankful for my friends. Some say he is definitely coming back, some say he most assuredly will not return, and others simply say to release the butterfly. All say I love you. I am thankful for my puppies who travel everywhere I go. Fur and licks always at my fingertips. I am thankful for my family who let me know I am safe and loved.

I am thankful that even if God and Chad don’t see fit to return home to me, that I still had his love for two years as a lover and a best friend, and that I still have his love and he has mine. I am thankful that I have learned the difference between ‘I need in order to survive’ and ‘I want and choose.’ The first of which is the love a leech and is shallow and changing, and the second the love of freedom which is pure and true. I don’t and never did need Chad’s love to survive, but I did want his love and choose his love (and still do) every day we were together.

So, Dear Father, thank you for all you have given me in my life. Thank you for the friends you have surrounded me with that show your compassion. Thank you for the angel souls in the form of dogs you have entrusted to my care that show me your unconditional tenderness and faithfulness. Thank you for my brother who shows me your desire to have us walk the path of confusion with someone who may not be in our shoes but is wearing the same brand. Thank you for my parents who show me what it means when you say you love us like your children, for they show me that you must indeed love, accept, and rather adore me, and want only to have me safe, happy, and to be a good man. Thank you for Chad who shows me your desire for me to live a full and abundant life, not based out of fear or convention, but out of freedom, and choice to love, and shows me that I can trust my heart to those I love, even if they break it, they do so out of love. So, thank you for life and the fallible yet perfect treasures you have placed to surround me.