Giving Thanks (T-minus 478 Days)

First off, I want to wish you all Happy Thanksgiving. No matter who you are (or aren’t) with, or what you are doing, I hope you are having a wonderful day.

After all, it is right to give thanks.

And so, with my apple pie in the oven, I have some down time and want to do just that. I originally planned to write a semi-sarcastic list about why it’s so great to be single at the holidays, but let’s face it, it kind of blows … plus it’s already been done.

Instead I want to write about how truly thankful I am to have been single until this point in my life.

Don’t laugh or roll your eyes; I am serious.

I want to preface everything I am about to say with the fact I have nothing but happiness for my friends that found the loves of their lives in college, or high school for that matter and I wish them lifetimes of joy and/or, for those unjoyful times, great makeup sex.  

But I think back to the person I was when I graduated at 22, and even more so the person I was at 20 when I met the person I spent seven years thinking was my Mr. Big, and I was not in the place to find my great love. Mostly because I had yet to realize that your first true great love needs to be yourself.

Over the six and a half years since I graduated from college, I have lived in three states, worked at three different places and risen within my profession, even if it took working 70 hours/week. I bought my first new car, started a retirement fund, worked through the holidays, learned about wine and bought enough patio furniture to entertain six.

I have loved and lost and learned to love again.

And most importantly, I learned to love myself.

I realize, to some, that may counteract the very premise of this whole blog about finding my groove and finding happiness, but to me learning about how freakin’ amazing I am was just the foundation for the rest of it.

I had to first learn I deserved to have a groove and I don’t think I could have done that with someone else in my life, someone that I had to put before myself. I have been wholeheartedly selfish for much of the last several years and I am perfectly OK with that.

But I don’t want to be selfish anymore. And yes, part of that is sharing it with a man that I might or might not meet online, but it’s also building a life that is not centered on work. That is instead about friends, family, faith and enjoying everything in the world around me.

So that is what I am here to do. And I am oh-so-thankful to be in the strong and independent position to do so.