Thankfulness

I have set for myself the goal of writing weekly posts until May 2026. What I will do after that is unknown. I've been chugging along at this personal goal for two and half years. Two years ago, I was unable to post every week, because I was very busy with grad school. I reduced my posts to once a month.

The past six months, I have been able to make weekly posts. When I'm on breaks from teaching English, I see what inspirations arise in me, and I quickly jot down the notes and label them for upcoming weeks. Now that it is Winter Break, I am typing posts to accompany all of my ideas.

This post is about my thankfulness for airplanes. Random, right? However, I think that's how thankfulness should be. It just comes on at all times. It's important that we recognize the things that make us feel gratitude.

In the middle of October, I was particularly thankful for airplanes. During that time my cousin unexpectedly died. The week after that I had a trip planned to fly to Louisiana for my 20th year high school reunion.

When my cousin died, I was in no emotional state to drive across Texas to be with my family. I was very grateful for having the use of airplanes. I'm frequently in awe of how helpful and fast planes are. I was amazed at how much energy the flights saved me.

I would have had to drive at least 60 hours in two weeks' time to be with the people I wanted to see. I would have been exhausted and literally bent out of shape. Instead, I was able to close my eyes and focus on relaxing my body while I zoomed through the air. I could cry as I needed to cry, and I didn't have to worry about not being able to see through my tears.