What I am Thankful for in 2014

I am still grateful for all the things I was last year-for fuzzy socks, for tea, and of course for fairytales. These things are comforting and I will always be able to return to such material comforts. But there is one thing that I can't emphasize enough and probably will never be able to be thankful for enough, so long as I live.

I have been blessed with wonderful people in my life, both friends and family (though the line betwixt them is pretty thin).
Simply put, they are the reason that I haven't just stopped-just sat down and refused to go forward.

I am, have always been and will forevermore be grateful to my family. Yes, they push my buttons for fun but I have never questioned that they have my best interests at heart. Thanks to technology, you can basically carry me in your pocket and I can carry you in mine.

But I wanted to spend a little more time talking about my friends this year, the people that I have somehow convinced that it is a good idea to hang around me for extended amounts of time. From an emotional and psychological perspective, it would be so much easier to hold everyone at arm's length. It has definitely been an process for me this past year, trying to figure out if it's even okay for me to admit to people that I don't have it all together, that there wasn't a plan, because I was so terrified of the subsequent judgement that would come.

But a lot of times, the judgement never came.

I have no doubt that I will remember a lot of the anxiety and stress of this past year down the road. But I hope that I will never forget the other times too-the countless times that people have calmed me down when I freaked out that I had no future (as I am prone to do). The times that I actually left my room to have meals with people and felt a little bit less like an academic robot and more like a human again. Saturday morning coffee runs, late nights in lab, walks through art galleries, walks through the mall, the rare instances that we ventured off campus into the big bright city. Thank you for not giving up on me when I retreated into my introverted self and for still trying to coax me out of my room anyways.

Writing them out now, they aren't the most daring and bold stories-they probably wouldn't be impressive to those who enjoy living on the edge. But they have been the most important times to me and the best part of all of this is, is that they can happen every day that I am with my friends. They have truly seen me at my best, my worst and everything in between. Despite me wanting to curl up into a ball at what seems like every minor setback, my friends have picked me up again, fed me (very important), and set me on my path again. They have proved that we can endure this really weird and stressful time together and I could not be doing what I am doing without them by my side.

With lovely, sassy and wonderful people like that, could anyone truly be lost?