05/30/2025
Gratitude isn’t just a spiritual virtue. It’s a recalibration of the self. And in the month of May, I’ve come to understand it more intimately than ever before.
Most people confuse gratitude with forced positivity. They say things like "be thankful for what you have" or "just count your blessings," as if gratitude is a bypass route around real emotion. But real gratitude isn’t performative. It doesn’t live in hashtags or hollow affirmations. It lives in the pause — in the space between deprivation and desire. In the quiet moment you realize you already are what you’ve been chasing.
There was a time I would give away my most precious things. Not for recognition. Not even for love. But because I felt called to. It would rise up inside me like a burning instinct. I thought I was being generous. I thought it was a spiritual gift. But looking back, I now understand:
I was giving parts of myself away.
Pieces of me wrapped as presents for people who never intended to stay. And worse? They never understood the value of what I gave.
By the time I reached my thirties, I stopped answering that instinct. I drew a boundary I didn’t know I needed. I stopped giving for the sake of giving, and started asking myself:
Is this coming from overflow? Or from a hidden place of lack?
Because there is a difference between generosity and self-abandonment. And often, we disguise the latter as the former because we think it makes us more lovable.
The truth was, I had no idea how to receive unless others were receiving too. And when someone finally asked me why I never bought myself anything new — why everything I owned was secondhand or someone else’s leftovers — I didn’t have an answer. That moment cracked something open in me.
I had spent my life curating style from other people’s throwaways. I had learned how to look “presentable” using the artifacts of someone else’s identity. But I had no idea what I actually liked. What colors moved me. What textures wrapped me in joy. What styles made me feel strong, radiant, worthy.
I didn’t know because I had never been allowed to choose.
Gratitude, I’ve learned, is not about being thankful for scraps. It’s about honoring your evolution. It’s about saying:
"I no longer settle. I no longer shapeshift. I no longer hand my essence to people who cannot recognize it."
Gratitude lives in the moment you stop surviving and start curating your life. On purpose. With love.
That’s the version of me May gave birth to.
And June?
She will walk fully in it.
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