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And the award goes to... "They like me, they really like me"

The life of a college student is one which insists upon your gratitude, and constantly. Even the most obnoxious, arrogant, frat boy has said at least one thanks to the heavens above, if only for the last drop of musty beer laying in the previously used can under the oldest table in the darkest corner. Gratitude is omnipresent in our worlds.

After almost 4 years of an education which seems to have been afforded to me by some extreme luck, some extreme prayer, and a little bit of begging I have to wonder where my gratitude should lay; if at this very moment someone standing behind a podium on high, we'll call this person god (little g) because its more interesting that way, decided "and the award for a consistent recurrence of happiness starting...now! goes to {insert my name here}" what would I say? Who would I cry about or give my shout outs to? Who would I "owe it all to"? What would my speech say:

I am thankful because I have to be. Not because it is a voluntary action that I chose to exhibit one day on a whim, or on a just because. No, I am thankful because I have been faced with so many concrete reasons to be thankful that denying their existance would be to blindly ignore the world that exists around and within me and through that denial in a sense I'd be denying the existance of myself.

I am thankful for a mother, but not just the basic sense of the word. I am thankful for a mother who will travel hours to ensure that I am fed. I am thankful for a mother who defends me, talks to me on speaker phone while she is driving and sends me random, inexplicable text messages. I am thankful for a mother through whom I was thrown into this world and offered me the knowledge of love and compassion, struggle and survival, friend and family. I am thankful for Chicken and Dumplings, "getting ethnic", Black Friday's standing in the cold, and childhood memories of sore throats and Mickey Mouse popsicles...all these thanks which stem from my mother.

I am thankful for my family, for the rich texture of us all. I am thankful for the honey'd all the way through chocolate skin, the big ass, loud talking, gossiping, laughing, loving, frying, dying, holidays, sick days, fix me a plate, cast iron skillet, Ma Daisy's sweet potato pie, legacy, wisdom, strength, courage, sitting in the sun, down in the country, just being all the time thing that we do.

I am thankful for the wind on my window. The invisible streams of air that lull me to sleep as the rap, tap tap on my window fades into my dreams. I'm thankful for the breeze on my skin, eyes closed, loud sighing, because that's what my love will feel like. I'm thankful for its cool complete caressing, pulling me closer to this earth that I live, lay me down all around. I am thankful for the wind.

...And as the music plays, and I'm rushed across the stage I will think of all the other things which were more important, but there will be other times to let my gratitude come across.

**fIreFLy**

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