Cards on the Ring

If I wrote any Thank You cards for something special, beautiful, interesting, important whatever event in my life, I would clip each paper on the small ring. The one we use on the key chain. All small rings I will connect to the bigger ring to hold them all. It will allow me to move from one note to another when I want to read a note. Each note will represent one year. As many small rings are on the big ring as many years pass. When small segments stop fitting on the big connector I will start chain small rings up from one to another. It will design a huge earring that holds all of my memories together.

If I went through them I would see that some notes are short but some are long, with details describing colours and music, emotions and thoughts I experienced in a particular year.

I would start writing Thank You notes from the year I started writing. My handwriting is unstable with all big capital letters. A card will show a gratitude for mastering a writing skill and for my mom not standing beside me, noticing a mistake in one of the words and tearing a page down.

Another card from the same age will be not for moving to a different town but for realisation of being a kid with a good sense of humor. That helped to go through new school challenges with classmates and teachers coming in unison with extremely cold weather and cockroaches in the washroom.

One card will sing a hymn to my music school teacher. Very intelligent, supportive, caring, simply the best educator who became my role model. She worried about and loved us, her students like her own.

I would make one card for the year when I started dancing classes that brought me joy of participating and fun of performing.

One of the cards will be written in gratitude for the school graduation and moving to the Uni campus. Because I kept changing my mind about who I wanted to be every week during the year, the gratitude grew huge. Starting then it will be all capital letters standing for thank you for surviving the first year and passing all exams.

Next card will be for taking a sabbatical year and going to a different city. This note will be addressed not to the city or sabbatical year but to myself who had enough strength to leave everything behind and go for trying to get into the Public Relations program in one of the prestigious universities.

The very next note will reveal one million and one heart on it coming together with an enormous gratitude for meeting my husband with his never saying no talent and unstoppable will to support me in any situation.

My later gratitude will be for graduating from the Uni #1, where I returned after not getting into the second one. 

Big thanks for moving to Canada that brought me more challenges but reinforced my self-esteem. That improved my surviving skills that were established during my first year in Uni #1 .

Another year granted me a sense of gratitude to have my first born with no sleeping at nights but watching him grow, learn and master his gift to describe the world using sarcastic sentences.

My second kid was a beauty to get in a couple of years. He taught me that even babies have their own time management. I am a time aware person with a strong desire to be on time. He always waited for me beside the door. 

I am grateful for a miracle to have my third one. Who just turned out to be the most caring of his mama baby.

All three brought me to the point of being grateful for having them all and calling myself a mother. That makes me think that this is probably the only great thing about being a woman with all the responsibilities, woman health issues and outcomes during and after.

I am thankful for a job at the grocery store. The understanding of wasting my potential for nothing sparked me one day and pushed me to start studying.

I am sincerely grateful to one of many interviewers I had while looking for a job in education. She was the one who didn’t give me a job but an explanation how it works here, in Canada and sent me to the starting point of obtaining credentials.

I am grateful for one determination in friendships. I am happy that I broke up with one of my friends recently. This friendship was always about fighting and competing who knows better.  When we were children we could stay silent for weeks. We shared the same desk at school and did not talk. Dancing in a pair at the dance class without making a sound. While living in different cities we didn’t see each other a lot. With all the potential that social media provided us with, she ”found” me and we re-started relationships, mostly talking by Skype. The last time I called after the 6 month break, she just snapped at me with accusations of not finding the time for her more often. I said that it’s OK for others, people can be busy. She was furious, saying that she is not like others. I offered to stop it forever. I am grateful I did it, otherwise it would be the same who is better or whose headache is the worst conversation.

This is one ring that comes with a few connected to it. These Thank You cards are for my best friends. Two of them are here. I met them years ago at the playground where I used to go with my kids. We went through all the driving tests, college exams, first jobs and interviews while joking, laughing right away and laughing later. Another best friend I have is back home. We are in touch day and night. I am grateful for a chance to meet with her abroad a few years ago.

Oh, my! This one will be written on the card with happy faces on it. How can I not be tremendously grateful to all my tiny in size but with big hurts full of love and appreciation kindergartens? You are who makes me love my job, who inspires me and keeps me going!

I am grateful for not just starting going to the gym and having scheduled sessions. The discovery of the possibility of continuing doing that brought me a strong desire to try something else, like jogging and make more healthy living choices.

I am grateful to have all these thank you cards on the ring I created. Unfortunately, not all of my friends could make it until my age.

If I spent more time reading what the notes revealed I would find some cozy thanks for loving coffee and homemade pizza, for a few favourite books, for my home plants and for the comfortable chair I have.

The last one I would come to, at any time I read the cards will be the note without a year indication on it. I will draw a question mark in each corner to show my constant state of wonder. The most humongous gratitude I ever had is not knowing how many more cards I will add to the ring of my own.