I stumbled across the “Dear Life” letters on So Many Places the other day and fell in love with the concept. Kim asks that we take just a few minutes out of our days to write a letter of gratitude back to life. To appreciate the things we’re thankful for and to share those sentiments with the blogging community. So here goes:

Rachel
Boston, MA, USA
July 23, 2013
9:47 p.m.

Dear Life,

Thank you for the comfort of my couch in the soft light of my living room at night and for the laughter and kindness of the company in my cozy home in Boston.
Thank you for the discomfort of an airplane seat on a long flight somewhere far away: for moments I can’t find my gate, for flight delays.

Thank you for the means and ability to travel all over the world with people I love and on my own.
Thank you for sometimes taking those means away and forcing me to see things differently–to seek out the seemingly ordinary in place of the luxurious or expensive.

Thank you for constantly surprising me and not always making things easy.
Thank you for all the problems in the world, it gives me a million and one things to be passionate about.

Thank you for teaching me to love people, to love places, and to love books.
Thank you for J.R.R. Tolkien and Cheryl Strayed.
Thank you for language and the ability to express myself creatively every day.

Thank you for my family and friends, I would be an entirely different person without each and every one of them.

Thank you for knocking me down sometimes and reminding me that I’m not always right and I will never be perfect.
Thank you for reminding me that even though I’m not and never will be, it doesn’t mean I should ever give up.
Thank you for revealing the beauty of imperfection.

And thank you for sometimes intervening when I don’t quite get it.
Thank you for reminding me that faith and fate have a role to play in all of this.
And thank you for whispering that, when it comes down to it, life is about doing what you love.

Sincerely,

One happy camper