Thankful!

I have lived forty-nine years, but sometimes it feels like I have lived several different lives inside that one lifetime. Versions of me that grew up, fell apart, rebuilt, moved states, survived things I never thought I would, and kept going anyway. I have met a lot of people along the way. I have traveled to places I never expected to see. I have watched entire chapters close and new ones begin, sometimes quietly and sometimes with a crash.

But through all of it, there is one part of myself that has never changed. I would not call myself an introvert, but I have always been a loner. I can be surrounded by people, talking and laughing, and still feel most at home in my own head. I will not comment on what I think of most people — life has taught me more than enough in that area — but I will say this with absolute certainty:
the one constant, the one truth, the one thing that has never wavered, is my family and my husband.

They are the steady center of every version of me I have ever been.

I love them endlessly. Not in the soft, Instagram-quote way. In the real way. The imperfect way.
The way where we argue, get irritated, push each other’s buttons, and sometimes need space.
The way where they can drive me absolutely crazy, and I know I do the same to them.
The way where emotions get messy and life gets loud.

And yet we always come back to each other.

We are always family. We always choose one another again.

For me, that is enough. Actually, it is everything.
I do not need a long list of blessings to feel thankful.
I do not need to force gratitude for things that feel complicated or out of reach.
I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for my husband.
I am thankful that I get another year on this earth to love them, to annoy them, to laugh with them, to fight with them, to sit in silence beside them, and to keep building something together — even with brain cancer in the room with us every day.

This disease has taken a lot from me, but it has also sharpened what matters.
It has stripped away the noise.
It has humbled me, broken me open, and reminded me that time is not guaranteed.
It has made the word “thankful” feel less like a Pinterest aesthetic and more like a heartbeat.

Here is to getting another year with brain cancer.
Here is to the people who make the fight worth it.
Here is to waking up each day and knowing that even when everything feels uncertain, the love in my life is not.

That is all I am thankful for.
And I am completely okay with that.