Being Thankful

Big Fishes' Carnival at The Lake - Being Thankful


"When was the last time I stop to see the leaves falling gently to the soft ground?" I asked myself.

Suddenly walking alone among the trees and the rays of setting sun felt soothing. As the wind carefully caressed my cheeks and the birds continues to sing the tune of joy, I sighed and continued my journey. Never before had nature erased my suffering, for I had never let her do so. Now the smell of the grass healed my wounded heart like nothing I could ever imagine. For that, I was thankful.


I was thankful for my friends, whom I had been desperately trying to chase. I thank them for keeping distance that was almost invisible to most; laughing together only when I deliberately made fun of myself. I thank them for training me to be a better man; to be a person who could withstand being taken for granted, sacrificed when they needed me to be and ignored when I was down in life.

I was thankful for my teachers, who relentlessly reminds me of the goals I must achieve and expectations they had in me. Running was supposed to be my focus in life, and the teachers never failed to remind me of what needed to be done to reach my dream; a dream crafted from others' expectations, born just of a spark of limited talent. I was also thankful for them for not being there to comfort me when consecutive failures began to seeps into my sanity like an undetectable poison.

However, most of all I was thankful for the loneliness that came back to me when everything else went away; it had the loyalty that I respected and would respect for the rest of my life. My loneliness accompanied me through the mental journey when I pondered over how my pursuit of artificial excellence had stripped me of my true happiness: a joy at heart, a fulfillment of life, of what life gives during and not what life gives after.

Loneliness told me that I had done enough and I deserved a break; from running, from pursuing, from bearing expectations. Loneliness had put me into a deep sleep, for peace and calmness, when everyone in the bus was standing still, as if giving a cold stare at me and my split-second loss. Loneliness had woke me up at the right timing, at the wrong bus station, and told me that I had been running all this time and might have forgotten how to walk.

I wouldn't forget how the warm sunshine streaming through trees illuminated my path to a better opinion and perspective of life. I wouldn't forget the song of hope that the little birds were singing; a song that ran through your veins and empowered every steps out of sadness. I wouldn't forget how nature's magic erased my tears just by embracing me in her green salvation. I wouldn't forget my promise to her of not falling, failing and crying, ever again.