Reflecting on What I Am Thankful of

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I sit here so full from my dinner and am waking up from a food coma having coffee. Ron is next to me but on his way out. He's been on call this weekend (he is a psychotherapist) and he's had several calls. It just shows how many of us struggle during the holidays such as this one. I know I too have been there so many times and to be quite frank was terrified of this one. I am pleased to tell you that its been a wonderful day.

Ron wrote an article about the alarming trends in anti-depressants and the amount of people taking them. I being one of them. I always swore I would never go on them but eventually gave up the fight last year as suicide seemed to be looming ever closer at my door. I have wanted off them for a while now but my doctor here in Moab wants me to wait just a bit more than I will go off them gradually. With all the ups and downs and continued stress I am undergoing she just didn't feel it was safe.

I was wondering if Europeans or South Americans or Canadians had the same statistics about anti-depressants or is this a North American phenomena. I know our health system has become a legal drug pusher program. Doctors don't even touch you anymore or look in your nose or anything. They sit down in front of their computer screens and print out a prescription without making eye contact anymore. Is is like that all over the world or is it just here?

As I read what Ron wrote he basically brought up ideas on how to move past the saddens and embrace the wonder of life. I have been learning to do that for the first time this summer and I love it. Don't get me wrong...I oftentimes suck at it. For those of you that know me know I can be a bit doom and gloom at times because lets face it....thats just been my life experience. But reading what he wrote made me think on my life and for the first time in my life ever I really feel blessed and am beginning to love who I am. Yeah...I know I'm weird and attract strange people in my life and have weird taste on almost everything but I am who I am and I'm beginning to see that its not such a bad thing. I add color to this already very colorful town called Moab and that suits me just fine. I don't even stick out.

I have been reflecting the last week on what is really important to me. I find prestige and affluence is not super important. As long as I can pay my bills without having to have my mother help me out all the time would be super great. That is coming more and more. So instead I am very thankful for my mother. She has sacrificed countless hours of sleep worrying about me this summer and all the help she has had to give me. Two such huge examples of that is she paid for my gall bladder surgery and then she invested in my business and has supported me until I could support myself. I hope one day I can make all of this up to her. I try to tell her I see all she does and I am so appreciative but I will never be able to express to her what that support has meant to me.

I am thankful for my daughter who is my best friend. She and I have been through so much together and have learned and grown and fucked up together so much. We've never really been mother and daughter. Sisters is more like it but sometimes shes my mom and sometimes I'm hers. Sometimes its love/hate and sometimes its a love that is indescribable. I am proud of her for surviving the adversity life has continue to throw at her. She has grown into a beautiful woman with a fabulous future in front of her in the world of Culinary Arts. She is beautiful, intelligent and the funniest person I know and I know she puts on a tough act but her heart is three times too big and she does what she has to to protect it.

I am thankful for my Ron. He is one of the most intriguing and genuine people I have ever met. He has forced me to be honest about myself to myself and to him. We love our time together just sitting and reading, talking, driving or hiking. I could just gaze into his eyes all day and I love to make him smile. I have never felt so loved and safe in my whole life. Since we have come to know each other I have been able to wrap his love around me like a warm safe cocoon and I have blossomed under his care. I can't imagine how I survived this long without him. Its funny though since I have met him I am stronger now than ever. Anyway this kind of love and bond is as close to unconditional love as one could ever hope to find.

I could write for hours on all that I am thankful for but those are the big ones and for the first time since I was 7 years old I can say I am really happy. Genuinely and truly happy. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can look around you as I have done and find yourself surrounded with love and peace.

Love Lisa