This year has been a year that has allowed me to really give thanks more than any year before. I've been trying to practice gratitude for a while, and I think it is much like a muscle, if you stop for a while, you become winded and once you start again it sometimes takes a while to get back on track. In many ways, leaving a place is almost a whimsical reminder of gratitude because (at least for me) gratitude generally coincides with nostalgia or a remembering of all the beautiful rather than focusing on the difficult. Tonight was a special night for me because I was able to reconnect with a previous student. I was greeted with the upmost hospitality, a dining room table to practice math during our small tutoring session, cookies and a way for us to talk about all the humorous moments of last year. For the amount of moments in the past eight years where I have doubted my place in the classroom, doubted my vocation and doubted sometimes who I am as a person and my lack of work life balance, I sat at the dining room table and was simply humbled to be me.

I'm humbled to have been raised by two amazing parents who modeled day in and day out that your job better be your vocation and you will never regret the timeless amount of hours spent in trying to better the world. I was humbled to have had the past eight years at a school I called home, created curriculum and did my best to inspire and motivate every student I had and love them with all of my heart, and I am proud (so very proud) to call myself an educator because I do not think there is any more challenging, more nostalgic, more tender, more humbling profession that can literally knock you on your behind one day and have you crying tears of joy and hope another. 

I am thankful to be me, and I wouldn't have changed anything I have experienced for the world. I would never have stopped working hours at night to tweak curriculum or full summers leading groups and academies. It told this particular student my exciting news as well as a few of my middle school students this week and to see their faces when they realize the possibility of what it all means has probably been my favorite part of this season of life. 

Practicing gratitude not only takes patience but sometimes it really takes an event in your life to knock you right on your backside and begin to see the world more clearly and how beautiful it is that we are given that second, third and fourth chance. Gratitude for who we are, what we have been given and where we are going is what creates a pure heart, new ideas and a continued thirst to better ourselves and inspire those around us. Gratitude is a muscle. And we are only given limited time here on earth. Don't let it be too late before you start to practice the beauty that surrounds your heart and the beautiful that allows you to be you.