For most of my life, I thought gratitude only came after everything was healed, settled, and safe.
Now I know better.
Gratitude is what grows in the middle of the ashes — after the unmasking, after the collapse, after the truth burns everything down and you’re still standing.
Today is Thanksgiving 2025.
And I want to name — clearly and out loudly — the people, the truths, and the moments that I feel quite literally saved my life this year.
I am only here because of them.
1. My sister — for choosing truth over comfort
For her perseverance.
For her determination to seek the truth when the truth was buried under decades of lies.
The DNA kits blew the entire case wide open — but it was her courage to open that door that changed everything. Without her, we would likely all still be trapped inside a manufactured reality.
She didn’t just change our family story.
She ended the cycle.
2. My sister again, and her family — for giving us a landing zone when everything collapsed
After three long years of our mother’s presence in her home…
After exhaustion most people would never endure…
She still opened her door to my son and me when we had nowhere else to land.
That was not obligation.
That was love in action.
3. My children — for standing with me at rock bottom
There are no words big enough for this one.
They didn’t walk away when I broke wide open.
They didn’t turn their backs when the truth shattered me.
They didn’t disappear when I had nothing left but honesty.
They stayed.
And because they stayed, so did I.
4. My real father & his family — for accepting me without judgment
For welcoming me without conditions.
Without suspicion.
Without skepticism.
Without trying to reshape me.
For simply saying:
“You belong.”
And meaning it.
5. My fellow survivors — for seeing me when I was still learning how to be seen
Thank you for:
- holding space without fixing
- listening without minimizing
- sharing without competing
- validating without conditions
You gave me safety before I knew what safety felt like.
6. My TARAnon & CaliSobr communities — for redefining what healing actually looks like
The support I found this year showed me that:
- recovery doesn’t have to be rigid
- progress doesn’t have to be perfect
- and healing doesn’t have to involve shame
Thank you for meeting me where I actually am, not where others think I’m “supposed” to be.
7. Bitcoin — for teaching me what truth without permission looks like
This one might surprise people, but it shouldn’t.
Bitcoin showed me — in plain sight — that:
- systems lie (the fiat monetary system)
- narratives are manufactured
- power depends on control of truth
- and opting out is possible
Watching Bitcoin survive lies, attacks, manipulation, and fear campaigns while still producing blocks with mathematical honesty taught me something at a gut level:
Truth doesn’t need approval to exist.
That lesson carried straight into my personal life.
I stopped outsourcing reality.
I stopped trusting authority by default.
I stopped believing “that’s just how it is.”
Bitcoin didn’t just reshape how I see money.
It reshaped how I see truth, power, and consent.
And a few more I can’t leave unsaid…
8. My writing voice — for finally showing itself
It waited patiently for decades.
And now it’s here.
9. My nervous system — for still trying to protect me, even when it learned the wrong rules
We’re rewriting them now. Gently.
10. The truth — even though it shattered me
Because nothing fake survives the light.
11. The man I am becoming
Not the one I was molded into.
The one I am choosing to be.
In Closing…
This year was not built on comfort.
It was built on:
- clarity
- grief
- courage
- truth
- boundaries
- and the painful kind of growth that rewrites a life
But for the first time in my life…
I’m not grateful because everything is easy.
I’m grateful because everything is finally real.
Happy Thanksgiving, 2025.
And thank you — all of you — for helping me survive it.
