Year-end Thanksgiving

Year-end Thanksgiving

Though most people wrote about resolutions and their insights, musings, regrets, complaints, whatever during the past year, I will be writing about the things I have been absolutely grateful for in 2005. I have a lot to thank for, anyway :)

The past year has been a year of changes for me. Change in environments, change of friends, change of status, change of residence even. Though changes abounded, I still retained friends of old and even re-discovered things and people I thought I have long ago lost.

I turned 21 last year. For most it’s a big deal for this signals one’s entrance to adulthood. Here one can make decisions on their own without need for parents’ consent, a time when most are employed and earning their own money, a time when they live on their own. I am no exception; in fact that’s how I imagined myself to be when I turn 21.

This was made possible by the fact that I finished college last year. Graduation was one of the best things that happened to me, not only because I finished in a school known for its high educational standard (which I was so afraid of not meeting at first) but because it was the end of one phase (schooling) and a start of another (employment). I chose not to go to graduate school agad ‘coz I wanted to experience working (plus I have been studying since I was 2½, I want a break).

Speaking of which, I am thankful for my job. I have always wanted to be in advertising but He brought me in another direction. Though my acceptance of the job happened so quickly it took some time before it sank in that I am employed, I do not regret my decision. Action & Fitness only started this year and though the road was bumpy (very bumpy) at the start, things are slowly getting better (the fact that the mag was just starting made me stay). I am thankful for a nice editor, who is ever so patient with me. I am thankful for my colleagues who make my work environment, well, fun, to say the least. I am thankful for Christian bosses who, despite the busy goings-on in the office, never forget the One Who makes everything happen.

I am thankful for my sisters-in-Christ, we who fondly call ourselves the S.S. (as in Super Secret what the letters mean). My friendship with Lani and Zy started and deepened because of our common love for God and our search for Him. Our fellowship with other Christian sisters has been wonderful and brought us closer to Him. Though we may be experiencing different trials now, both in our personal and spiritual lives, our sisterhood have what kept us, well, sane.

I am thankful to be part of a Catholic community where I have discipleship and fellowship with other believers. I am thankful for my KG – my facilitator and my KGmates – for the sharings and insights, blessings and prayers and lessons I get from them. I pray that they got the same from me as well. For the new friends I met and made in community, as well as those whom I have re-kindled after my absence, I thank God for them. Though my journey to joining the community wasn’t easy (for a whole lot of reasons), it was what He wanted me to go, and go I did. What lies ahead for me here? Only He knows.

I am thankful for my housemates, for re-discovering my high school friends, for allowing me to live on my own. I have been searching for a new place to stay in, where everything’s accessible and fits my budget, and Cubao was the place. It’s near the office, near the community center, and prolly (God-willing), near my law school. The people I am with have been the most fun and patient and generous and wonderful people to share one roof with. Our friendship which was started in high school was deepened now, after years of separation in college.

I am thankful for my parents, for being supportive of my decisions, albeit with much loving advice. They know what is good for me, having been “there,” yet they allow me to commit my own mistakes and learn on my own. I am learning so much, and still learning.

Now all the serious stuff has been thanked for, I thank for the simpler things also, like CSI Sundays, One Tree Hill marathons, for discovering that Desperate Housewives is a good show after all, for the two-month vacation after grad before I got employed, for working, though for a short time, for a friend, for discovering that I can still be a rocker, at my age, for the wonderful Christian music out there, especially the Indie artists, for spontaneous movie dates, college crushes, prospective GBs, Singles’ Socials, animated movies which Lani has dragged us to watch with her, the 6th Harry Potter book, the 4th Harry Potter movie, discovering the Chronicles of Narnia, free movie premiere tickets, Starbucks afternoons with my colleagues, musician friends and their gigs, finally going to Singapore with my family, nearly filling up my Starbucks card and high chances of getting that elusive planner after so long, SoulStop and fellowship with Atid, internet chats and making friends with people overseas, for my online best friend, for my longest crush of all time who has become a good friend (and hopefully has no idea that I crushed on him, and maybe has some feelings left), for fun, hyper, God-fearing cousins who are so quick in growing up, Burgoo lunches and coffee shop talks with the S.S., hamsters, ducks, rookies and coffee and a panda with a pet dwarf named after a famous painter, for blogging and personal web pages, for donuts-and-bagels talks, tear-jerking love stories, for the location photo shoots and cover shoots, press cons in posh hotels and picking out clothes in the mall, finally learning to use the Mac, for being not quite a fashion victim, for the cute guys I’ve seen everywhere, for rocking worship every 4th Friday of the month, for the new people I meet (in work, in community, in events, wherever), for my first-ever adventure race and finishing 5th among 15 teams, for the good reviews on A&F, for my intro to photography and graphic design, for multi-tasking, the menial tasks I did at the start, for all the good, and bad, things that happened to me in 2005. I may not have reached 2006 if not for those.

For all the people who really made an impact in my life the past year, you may or may not know it, but I thank you from the bottom of my getting-fat-coz-of-all-the-holiday-foods heart. I hope that I get to show you my gratitude. Here’s to more fun and sad times, and everything for God’s greater glory. Cheerios!