I struggle to verbalize my admiration for anyone. When I have met authors, speakers, influencers or otherwise notable people, I have struggled to know what to say because I find it impossible to fully communicate how they have impacted my life, shaped my thinking and influenced the person I want to be.
I have begun to acknowledge an eerily similar problem with acknowledging the important role of everyone I admire in my daily life. These are people that have brought me incomparable amounts of joy, and yet I find it almost impossible to thank them.
Thank you for reminding me of the woman I want to be. You have taught me to be kind, gentle and to embrace everything that makes me unique. You have empowered and inspired me in ways I didn’t know I needed.
To all my first college friends; those I sat by in class, went to the cafeteria with, stayed up all night laughing with and cried with as we packed up our freshman rooms,
Thank you for helping me find my place in our amazing community.
My friends from before Belmont, who have found their places and people all around the world,
I am thankful for your understanding and willingness to be weird with me no matter how old we got. I’m glad sleepovers never go out of style and I’m thankful for people that will forever act 16 with me.
My family and those who feel like family,
Thanks for raising me weird and always letting me take big leaps. The best way to learn how to swim is to be thrown into the lake (it was traumatic too, though).
As my second year of college ends, as I see friends graduate and start their “real” lives, I am more nostalgic about the way things change more quickly than I am ready for, but I am also thankful for the people that make those changes exciting.
I have lived in two of the most amazing and different communities (University Place and Nashville) and am thankful for the values and people that both have provided.
It is easy to be scared and take what we’re given for granted, but today, at least, how lucky I am could not possibly escape me.
