30 Days of Gratitude: Day One.

So I found a 30 day writing challenge on Pinterest, and I'm going to make you, dear readers, suffer through it. The challenge is supposed to be about letting gratitude into your life, which is something I try to practice daily already. So this is really just going to be about me getting in some much needed wordsmith practice. I really do hope you enjoy it though. I think it will be interesting to go down the list and talk about what I am truly grateful for. Being satisfied and thankful is a choice we have to make daily and some times the little things can slip through the cracks. I am certain this challenge will be eye and heart opening.

Day number one's prompt is "what smell are you grateful for today?" I'm not going to lie, this is going to be one of the more difficult ones for me to narrow down. I have a list of scents that are near and dear to my heart and I could go on for hours about them. Seriously, I really could. But for the sake of this challenge, I'll just write about one. The obvious choice here would be my Grandfather's cologne. If you've read just one of my posts, you know Pa was my very best friend. So I keep his cologne sitting on my vanity and I smell it when I feel sad. But that is not the one I'm going to pick!!

You didn't see that coming did ya? I'm sneaky like that.

Instead I'm going to write about what I have often thought of as the scent of my life. It is the combination of sweat, dirt, lake water, and off-road diesel. I know you're probably like where the heck did that come from? Well, I'll tell you. My absolute, hands down, all time favorite past time is riding four wheelers, specifically below the dam at Grand Lake. I spent all of my teenage years there, and a good chunk of my adult years as well, and this smell is everywhere. It is all-consuming. It is present in summer and in winter. It is almost like lifeblood for the area. If the dry side of the dam had a vein you could split, this smell would pour out.

So why am I thankful for it? Because it was the scent of my first real relationship, which taught me to love. It is the smell of heartbreak and bad tattoos. It is the smell of warm bud light and Marlboro menthols. It is the smell of money and time spent. It is the smell that helped shape who I am now. It is forever in my memory and heart. If I had never smelled it, been bathed in it, all but worshipped it, I would have never had the hell of a journey I've had in my 25 years. I would have never met Cameron. I wouldn't have Robbie Jo. I would have never learned to live loud and bold.

So you can see, this dirty, gritty, scent means so much to me. It is me. Because of it, my life is what it is and I would never trade that or go back and change it.