TOP TEN TUESDAY: Ten things I'm thankful for

(Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and The Bookish!)

I'd been planning on writing this Thanksgiving freebie about all of the books I was grateful for - titles that I'd read in the last year or so which had helped me feel better or brought me great joy.
But instead I've decided to write a slightly different post today.
I think it's high time I publicly thank all of the people that I'm thankful for, and acknowledge the things that I'm thankful for. I often find myself taking things for granted and not respecting the fact that I've got so much more than a lot of people in the world will ever be able to have, but the last couple of weeks have really hammered home to me that I am an extremely lucky person.

10) My health

Okay, this is the lowest because I've struggled with being thankful for this over the last week or so: I've had a bad cold that's been making me feel exhausted and has made it almost impossible to concentrate on the smallest tasks, a super painful ear infection and a huge resurgence of my anxiety that's left me physically shaking more times than I can count. But even with these things I'm still grateful: there are people out there struggling with debilitating and life-threatening conditions every moment of the day, people who have terminal illnesses that they can't survive, so a little bit of pain in my ear is nothing.

9) My blog

I've also been struggling to be thankful for the blog recently. Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle: I'll have a really good week in which all of my posts get shared, my pageviews go through the roof and I get loads of comments and conversations starting, and other weeks it's a complete tumbleweed with hardly anyone exploring my site. In the New Year I'm going to make an effort to feature more exclusive content - I really want to stand out from the crowd and learn to love my blog again, rather than fading into the background and tolerating it like I am at the moment.

8) My colleagues

We have a little group of friends called the Coven, and we have a Dungeons and Dragons group, and I love all the people who are part of those groups: so much so that I think of them as friends, rather than colleagues. I'm thankful for their unquestioning acceptance of me and my crazy - and sometimes irritating - personality, because when I got my job I cried all night the day before my first shift, so certain that everyone was going to hate me and I wasn't going to fit in at work. I couldn't have been more wrong!
The team that I work with is just so great, even if some of them do drive me crazy on occasion!

7) My friends

I have so many friends, and I value each and every one of them. I have friends that I can help when they're in trouble, friends that I know I can always go to when I'm upset, friends that are talented and awe me with their skills and friends that are hilarious and always make me laugh. I actually miss being at school, because it was brilliant to be able to see them all together on a regular basis: with everyone being off at their various universities, it's nigh on impossible to get the whole group together for one meeting any more - the picture above was taken last Christmas, and that's only half of us!

6) My best friends

I know you're not strictly supposed to have more than one best friend, but I count myself lucky: I have four! Two of them are my closest female friends, and two of them are my closest male friends, but I genuinely couldn't live without any of them. Lexi, Lauren, Tom, Kieran: you all rock, and I value your friendship so much. Here's to many, many more years of adventures and wonderful memories. Those four deserved thanking separately from the greater friend group, but I love all of my friends equally.

5) My boyfriend

I know this is soppy, but I'm so, so thankful for him. Our relationship feels like a movie so far - the way we met, the crazy antics that happened before we officially got together - and I wouldn't change a thing about our relationship. I wrote a letter of thanks to him during Blogtober, and since I wrote that I have so many more things I want to say: he constantly surprises and delights me, just by being him. I didn't know what love was until we got together.

4) My family

I don't have a big family - I'm an only child, and I don't know my father - but I'm grateful for that, because it means the bonds between me, my mum and my grandad are much closer than they otherwise would be. In fact, I live with both of them: can't get much closer than that! They support me through everything, even if I do act ungrateful sometimes - particularly when my anxiety is kicking in to high gear - but no matter how much we upset each other we always forgive each other.

3) My job

I'm very lucky to have a job that I love, even if it's not the most secure form of employment: there are going to be redundancies made in the New Year, and I'm terrified I'm going to be one of them. The reasons I love my job are almost endless: I love my colleagues, classing a huge chunk of them as extremely close friends, and being able to play (I mean, uh, work...) with books is the most exciting part of my day. I also like being able to help customers - even the ones that are very difficult and ungrateful - because the ones that are thankful and genuinely appreciate my help bring joy to my day.

2) My life

This might be cheating, because my life is all of the other nine things added together, but it's true!
Recently I've been made aware of just how privileged I am to be who I am: I'm white, I'm cisexual, I don't practice religion and I have a job so I don't need to worry about money. I'm bisexual, but I'm currently in a relationship with a man, so from a distant I would seem straight. Being a woman can be difficult, but there are so many fighters for the feminist cause which makes it much more bearable.
Compared to all of the people I see online getting persecuted daily for their sexuality, gender, race or religion, and those who are being discriminated against for their class or for having a disability, I'm extremely lucky. I'm never going to take that for granted again, and I'm going to use my position to fight for those being targeted.

1) You!

I'm so thankful that you checked out this blog post, even though it's so different - and much soppier - from my usual content. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if it's something you celebrate: if not, have a great last weekend of November!).

I hope you enjoyed this Top Ten Tuesday! What things are you grateful for?