It’s Thanksgiving eve, and instead of celebrating the biggest party night of the year, I’m going to stay home and watch Chappelle’s Show.  I have a lot to be thankful for this year.  Let’s do a rundown.

I have health insurance.  I have already been to four doctors, and there are more lined up.

I have the most amazing friends in the world.  I am in awe of how truly smart, funny, kind, and beautiful the people are who let me hang around them.  I have a best friend who is like a sister to me.  I have friends who have helped me move multiple times in the past 10 years.  I have friends across the entire spectrum of age, beliefs, and backgrounds.  Different colors, different genders, different orientations, but they all manage to put up with me.

I have a dog.  She teaches me patience as well as being so cute it makes me kind of wince.

My parents are people that I would feel lucky to know, much less be their child.  I have more fun hanging out with them than just about anyone.  If you wonder where my confidence comes from, it’s from having parents who love me unconditionally and have never let me believe there was anything I couldn’t do.

Most of all, I’m thankful for faith.  I’m not going to get into a lot of religious stuff here, because my beliefs are mine and not your concern and vice versa.  But I’m really glad that I have faith, because that’s where the peace is.  Shit hits the fan on a regular basis.  My life has plenty of downers, trust me.  I could throw myself a little pity party and actually get people to show up out of sympathy.  There’s no sense in that, though.  I’d rather throw a birthday party and get people to show up out of desire for slap bracelets.

One of my credos is a morbid little ditty I saw at a deli in my neighborhood.  It said, “I don’t know how it will all turn out.  All I know is: I’ll end up dead in the end.  So what could go wrong?”  It’s just another way of saying life is short.  Like Oscar Wilde said, life is too important to be taken seriously.

Every day is my thanksgiving, because I would rather be grateful than complain.

I promise to bring back my asshole ways in the next post.