Yes, it’s cliché to write a post called Thankful at Thanksgiving time. I know. Don’t care. 😁

I am so full of gratitude as we head into this holiday season. It’s been a crazy upside-down year for me and some of my family members. At the start of the year I would never have guessed that it would end the way it has, but I couldn’t be more thankful.

My daughter, Jordanne (23), and I had a difficult relationship while she was growing up. She was strong-willed and therefore hard to raise. And my personality was probably very difficult for her to understand. We joke that I’m a “don’t rock the boat” kind of person while she’s a “toss a hand grenade in it and see what happens” kind of person. Both types have their merits and it’s likely the best course of action is somewhere in the middle, most of the time. But that combo made it hard on both mother and daughter through the formative years.

Someone once told me that she had the same kind of relationship with her daughter and they ended up being best friends when her daughter was in her 20s. I remember hearing that, while in the thick of it with 11 year old Jordanne, and hoping—but mostly not wanting to get my hopes up as things were so hard. I couldn’t picture it actually coming to fruition.