If you’ve kept up with this column, you’d know personally I’ve been thrust into some pretty challenging circumstances.

Now, I’d like to tell you that this situation has changed. I’d like to tell you I found a steady income, a more permanent situation, and it became happily ever after…

Anyone who knows the reality of life will tell you I’d probably be lying as in the real world there are indeed good times, there are indeed good endings to the story (if you write one of course), but happily ever after is the stuff of fairy tales.

What isn’t an element of fantasy, what is in fact a tool to use to try and write those happy endings, that is the act of being grateful.

I’ve used this space to write about it before, especially during November when the beginning holiday festivities draw attention to being ‘thankful,’ but this time it’s different, this time being grateful means acknowledging the difference between shelter and no shelter, literal empty pockets to having something in them.

I’m grateful that I’m not as yet on the actual streets, I’m grateful that I’m not going hungry everyday, I’m grateful that even without my family by blood, I still have people that care about me and care enough to show it via choices and actions and not just words.

Most of the bills I do have were paid by the generosity of others, including one in particular who reached out to me after reading this column last month…it proves there is still good in the world, it shows that trying to give outwardly does indeed come back to you in time, but most importantly it provides hope, one of our most underappreciated essential resources to live life fully.

It’s a point that was proven again to me in a different way recently as well…I had to go into urgent care for an still unresolved abdominal pain radiating to the back and they gave me an electrocardiogram or EKG and the computer determined I might have had a heart attack.

When the nurse practitioner told me this along with the fact they believed I needed to immediately go to the ER to get it checked out, I was more scared than I’ve been in a while, even with the thought of being homeless still weighing over me.

It puts things into focus and perspective, even more so being where I am at the moment.

The phrase ‘it can always be worse’ comes to mind in a way, although that leaves it all a bit simplistic; it’s more like you have to recognize what you have because you always have to believe it can be better as well and the two balance each other out in some strange way.

I wouldn’t know a thing about sunshine if I didn’t know about rainy days, if that makes any sense.

So as I have this alphabet canvas I’ll say thank you. Thanks to those who care, thanks to those who kept me and others afloat, thanks to those who keep the fight going, thanks to the lessons that taught me to see this path the way I do…