Grateful is what I’ll call my today.
What does it mean to be grateful?
I may not be the best person to answer that question because for the longest time I didn’t know the right way to be grateful.
Because, you see, being grateful is not simply about that phrase, “Thank you.”
Being grateful is not just about the words. If I were being honest, being grateful has almost nothing to do with words. It’s a state of mind. Maybe better put, would be a state of heart.
Like I said, for the longest time I didn’t know the best way to be grateful. Because I thought it was the words, with a matching facial expression that I hoped conveyed how thankful I was. And then I said to myself, “This should suffice. They hear my words and they see my face. So they know I’m grateful.”
But I came to realize, and thankfully not too late. That being grateful has nothing to do with the words, let alone the smile that oozes what you hope to be thankfulness.
Being grateful is a living. A being. An action. Because there are two ways to show you’re grateful. It starts from the heart. It builds daily from the heart and then gravitates to the things you do, to prove that you’re grateful.
I’m grateful because I lived till today. If anyone told me a while back that I’ll be typing this day with a happy smile and an even happier heart, I’d have never believed it.
I’m grateful that I lived for a lot of reasons. That even when I was facing the most important, the focal and highlight issue of my entire year and saw my world crumble around me, I broke, but I lived.
It’s a lot to be grateful for. That you’re able to stand on two feet and say, “It was a trying time , but I made it!” Because that’s the thing, yeah....Many people are not able to make it. To utter those words of gratitude. Of self-satisfaction and fulfilment, that even though the odds tried. They didn’t triumph.
Today is a day to be grateful. Because I completed that highlight of my life on this day and walking to my dorm, I knelt with a heart full of gratitude because I couldn’t believe I made it. And that too with splendour and ease. My mouth couldn’t quite showcase how grateful I was but my heart did. And hopefully, my actions hereon would.
Now that I’ve completed this phase of my life, I’m thinking to myself... what’s the next step to take? What new challenge would I conquer? What does the next chapter of my life hold? And what are the best steps to take so I can actualise this new journey?
I don’t think I have the answers. Because life has shown me recently that you can build your entire life on a plan you think is solid and have the rug pulled off your feet as it crumbles like a stack of cards in front of your eyes. Carelessly stacked cards built on a foundation of delusion, perhaps? Who knows.
So I’m poised to do the only thing I’m sure I know how to do. And that is to be true to myself. To be true to the things and people that matter to me and to the goals I set for myself. And all of that would be done with a heart that is grateful. Bursting with it, in fact.
Oops.... this grateful post, has gone far longer than I wanted it to. And I know you guys are probably sick of hearing me talk about how I’m back to stay and then I go AWOL. Lol. But if you look closely, you’d see that this time, I mean it.
So yeah, on this new phase, let’s see what life holds for Grateful Tessa, shall we?
Jhymi🖤
Image is mine.
