This year’s Thanksgiving hits a bit differently.

It may be a bit cliche, but lately, I’ve been thinking about how the bad always makes a person appreciate the good.

It really sheds a different light on your life. And when you are someone like me, it can definitely make a person go through a lot emotionally.

I have always felt emotions deeper than most people. An empath, they say. I’m really tuned into my emotions, both sides of the spectrum. Fear. Angst. Hope. Happiness.

So this past month and a half has felt very different.

There was a time during everything with my dad that even my favorite songs didn’t sound good. For a while, my spirit was in a different place, and I’m grateful now that my spirit has returned. Music normally lifts my spirits and makes me feel good, but I wasn’t successful at doing that for a few weeks. The other day, I realized that music finally sounds good to me again.

The other side of setbacks is that it does give you a different lens through which to see all of your experiences.

For me, that means focusing even more intentionally on finding the light.

Focusing on appreciating what I have instead of obsessing over what I don’t.

I’ve always tried to live intentionally, but the truth is that when we do the same things every day and see the same people, it’s easy to take everyday life for granted, as if it isn’t special. But we need to FIND the special.

When we shift our perspective like this, it can make us take a new look at life…

Even if you don’t have a lot, it’s the simple things.

This daily gratitude is also why every morning when I wake up my kids, I also don’t yell, “Hey, it’s time to get up.” Instead, I always spend time with them, hug them, and tell them that it’s going to be a really good day. I lay with them and make them smile. One could choose to view it as just something I do every single day. But what if it wasn’t just something I did every day but the most important part of my day?

And one day, those cuddles and all those moments will be gone, but the memories will live forever. 

Speaking of memories that live forever, now that my dad has been released from the hospital, I had the chance to watch some Super Eight film with him again. You may recall I got a few boxes of his old film developed for his birthday in May. Sometime later in the summer, he decided to get the rest of them developed – now that we knew where to get it done.

We had been planning to watch them together. However, it was a busy summer for everyone, and we kept putting it off… I definitely didn’t want to watch them without him. One video was even from my actual BIRTH day!

While my dad was in the hospital, I was terrified of the fact that we might not ever be able to watch those videos together.

When he got out of the hospital, it felt extra special that we were able to watch those videos together. To be able to watch the moment Kassy met me for the first time, or Kassy’s first steps was so very special. I was so grateful for those moments together, watching those special videos again. It was a wake-up call to me. Stop putting important things off until later. Do it now.

That’s also why I thought it was really important we still go to New Jersey this year for Thanksgiving. I already feel bad that John can’t spend time with his dad more often. And one never really knows the future. Thankfully, my sister was able to come into town and stay with my mom and dad at my house so that we can go celebrate John’s dad’s 85th birthday. And, of course, Thanksgiving.

It comes down to this realization that just because we have something NOW doesn’t mean it is always going to be. When we leap forward in our minds and look at everything from that perspective, even the simplest of things start to matter.

Most of us have so many people and experiences in our lives for which we can be grateful. And gratitude is something we do have to think about every day,  not just during times of hardship and not just on Thanksgiving.

If you’re still reading this, do me a favor. Text someone and tell them thank you. Thank them for how they have contributed to your life. Thank them for their belief in you or something specific they have done. And tell them how much you appreciate them.

And, stop putting off that one thing with that one person. Do it now.