Thankfulness Thursdays :: Week 3

Today is week three of Thankfulness Thursdays where we meet up each week to share what we are thankful for from now until Thanksgiving.  You can write a simple list or focus on writing about one thing you are thankful for.  No rigid rules! 

Also feel free to use the above image in your blog post if you wish!

You can find out more information about the link up here.

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I enjoy looking at life through the lens of my camera.  It is like I get to step back and see what is in front of me.  Some like to be in front of the pack seeing what is ahead...not ever looking back.  I like to take a minute to soak in what is going on.  There is great perspective there.  

With the start of the school year, I have been looking back at the year and year's past.

It has now been an entire school year since I was a substitute teacher.  Something I knew inside of me was not a good fit but kept with it anyways.

And now it has been over a year that I have spent watching my nephew instead.  He was my excuse to get out of substitute teaching and an opportunity to work part time from home.

Prior to substitute teaching I was in college which also seemed to be the same dragging struggle.  I found out in my last year of school that I did not want to teach full time.  My last year of college was rough as I continued to finish something I no longer had interest in but finished for the sake of finishing.

In the last five years or so, I have been in a place where I knew I did not want to be but had to be there for one reason or another.  For the first time, dare I say for the first time in my official adult years, that I feel like I am right where I want to be.

Where I am supposed to be and where I want to be are different things.  I am thankful that where I am supposed to be and where I want to be have finally aligned.

But I would not be in this place if I didn't listen to my heart and take the risk of saying "no" to things that weren't working for me and "yes" to things that fit with where I wanted to be in life.

I get in ruts...more often than I would like.  Emotional ruts.  Relational ruts.  Mental ruts.  But these all come and go.  Life ruts are a little harder to get in and out of.  To think that I could have gotten stuck in a place that I didn't like because that is where I thought I was supposed to be and it fit into the world's view of what a 28 year old's life should look like.

Instead I get to be right at the place I dreamed of being.  For everyone that is different but for me it is being at home.  I don't want to take advantage of that.  So I am reevaluating my role at home and making the most at being where I want to be and where I am supposed to be at.

Because in five years, I want to look back and remember that I took great advantage of this season of life.  A season where I got to be exactly where I wanted to be and did not waste it.

*Photos from my view of "Adventure Club"