Thankful.

I have to be honest, I'm a little tired of this whole radio silence thing. I kind of feel like there is an expectation for us to not be okay, so I feel like we can't outwardly be happy. And not that social media is life, but I'm tired of taking pictures of my cats on snapchat to send to friends and inevitably deleting them because maybe it's not  okay for me to be okay already. But we are okay! There are minutes where we are sad or angry or confused, but overall, we are still okay. And to all the friends that didn't receive the cat pictures, well, you're welcome. So anyway, don't be surprised if/when we break the silence. 

Despite everything that happened, we have found a million things to be thankful for. And since Thanksgiving is on Thursday, there is no better time than now to write about it all. It's going to be a long list though, so bear with me.

• First and foremost, Brandon. This guy has seriously been my rock for the past few weeks (and years, really). I don't know what I would do without him. He holds me when I cry, works from home when I need him to, takes me to Costa whenever I ask, makes me laugh, helps me remember Carter, listens as I endlessly ramble about my feelings, and so many other things. I can't imagine having to go through this without him. He's the best support system I could ask for.

• I'm so thankful that I am able to feel Carter's spirit so close to me. I can always feel him here, but the times that I ask to feel it a little stronger, I do. I don't know how long he'll be able to just hang out with me whenever I ask, but I'm going to soak it up while I can.

• Our family has been so awesomely supportive as well. They listen when we need to talk, but also are okay with continuing on and being a happy family still. It would be so exhausting to just be sad or angry all the time, and I love that they don't try to make us keep feeling those things when we don't want to.

• Close friends and not so close friends. I can't tell you how much we appreciate all the texts, comments, and facebook messages we have received since we lost Carter. It makes me so happy to see other people using his name, and the outpouring of love we got after I posted his pictures...I can't even tell you what that meant to us. I've received a lot of little gifts too, and they are so special in that they remind me of him every time I look at them. I'm obviously not going to reply to each and every message-I hope that's okay, and I feel like people will understand-but this is a blanket thank you. We appreciate you guys.

• The cats have been so clingy and cuddly since it all happened. I'm weirdly obsessed with them anyway, but it's so nice to have a warm little body come cuddle with me when I'm feeling sad. I don't know if they understand what exactly is missing from our home, but they know when we're sad and they try to fix it.

• I still love our doctor so much. I'm grateful for the time he takes to answer our questions at our appointments, for the questions he asks us, and the love and support we feel from him. Tragedy does weird things for people, and I feel like all of this has turned us and his office staff into a little family. I don't know, we just really feel so much love from them.

• We bought a new car two weeks ago, and I'm thankful for it too, because it's all wheel drive and will allow us to go visit family even when the roads are snowy. The holidays are going to be hard without Carter here, so it will be nice to get away.

• I'm thankful for the kindness of strangers.

• I'm thankful for little blessings that have happened every day since we lost him. Even though the situation is so sucky, we have been able to recognize the little things and appreciate them for what they are worth. Someone, whether Carter or God or both, is looking out for us and making all of this a little easier to handle.

• I'm also thankful for my mental health. Given my history of depression, we were prepared for postpartum depression, but I'm honestly surprised I haven't fallen apart. Little things like opening the blinds, showering, eating right...I'm not sure why, but they're all working. Being depressed is exhausting. I don't want to do it again. Don't get me wrong, I'm grieving, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to do it in a healthy way: grieve, recover, and go about my day, even if it's just for the next few hours or minutes until the grief comes back.

Bad things happen to good people, but I don't believe that means you should lose sight of the good things that happen, even if it is something so small as the sun shining. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope your turkey day is filled with love and happiness!