I’ve been trying really hard to be thankful.

I am person who can generally jump into gratitude. I am thankful I have a job that I mostly love, I have a roof over my head, clean water, food, and people in my life. 

But these days being thankful for 2016 is not natural. 

I feel like I’ve been making my own luck these days, making my own story whimsy and beautiful and I’ve gotten tired. 

I’m thankful I’m someone who finds beauty in creating a beautiful meal for myself, or writing a note to someone or popping open a bottle of champagne.

As I wrote a week or so ago, I’m wanting to go into the new year actively choosing champagne. Actively choosing beauty.

But, if I’m being a little honest, I have some trepidation.

I’ve speaking a lot about changing my perspective, changing the way I see things, choosing champagne and buying my own damn kitchen aid. 

But what if I can’t?

What if 2017 is filled again with tears and loneliness and long weeks and tiredness and I find myself unable to push through? 

What if I can no longer be thankful for the little things?

What if I still want to run?

Choosing for yourself to see beauty, to have gratefulness, to choose hope daily amidst everything else in life is exhausting.

The weariness of this year is like the fingerprints on the glass doors in my classroom, it never quite goes away, and right when the fingerprints are scrubbed off 14 pairs of hands rush the door again.

This has been a different kind of year. I’ve had years that have caused me to question my life, my faith, my choices.

Ironically, when I reached a point where I felt like I knew who I was the most, this year has caused me to question the things that make up who I am.

And that has caused me to be weary.

I am thankful for parts of this year. I’m thankful for my roommate, for my friends, for the yellow house, for my job, for my church, for baby Choi, for plane tickets and Facetime and tears caught by people I trust on a cement floor in a garage.

I’m ready for the new year, excited by it and hopeful–because those are buried deeply in me, no matter what has happened to me. They’ve been question this year. I’ve pondered if it’s worth having those defaults. If they have gotten me anywhere.

In the midst of writing this blog my beautiful friend Katarina text me on of her favorite quotes:

That’s where I am with only a few weeks left in 2016. I know eventually down the road I will be thankful for what this year held as a whole, but right now I’m choosing to not be.

And I think that’s ok.