Feeling gratitude

I've been in a state of gratitude for the last few days. This feeling stems from the successful completion and uploading of my Master's thesis as well as the the depth of feeling I have to everyone who helped make it possible. The thesis was uploaded early last Friday afternoon after a very high anxiety producing twelve hours. It got to a point where I was so stressed out that I could not keep track of the flurry of emails that went back and forth. Eventually, things worked themselves out. It still took me awhile to calm down but eventually I did. I think in moments like this, talking to the guy in white really helped. I went to bed Friday night and had a very restful sleep. The rest of the weekend was spent in a state of recovery from an all time high level of stress and this was all from a Master's thesis, imagine if this was a doctorate dissertation? The list of people I'm grateful to for their contribution towards the completion of my thesis is endless. It's not just my committee but a roll call of people that contributed their knowledge, were patient, pushed and prodded, and encouraged me to go after topic. Without these people in my life, I wouldn't have even gotten past that first Art History class so long ago. It was at community college when someone first told me that I could handle the research and writing involved with humanities courses. Thank goodness I believed them and stuck with it all the way to grad school. I think had I given up early on, I probably just stayed a retail wage slave for the rest of my life. While working in retail is a great gig for some, it's not for me. I always knew I was better than just being someone who punches in-and-out. Maybe, despite the near incapacitating self doubt, there is a spark of confidence that never went out. It just needed the right people to bring it out. I felt enormously lucky to find those people. Maybe the one who rules this universe intended me to come in contact with those people? Going through the thesis process was probably the greatest act of faith on my part. It meant placing myself under the guidance of three people chosen by me who were able to take a large pile of notes and great ideas and point me in the direction of coherent thought. It wasn't just my committee, it was everyone who taught me how and what to write, gave me feedback even when it was hard to take, and most of all never gave up on me. Maybe I didn't appreciate then but I do now. In these hard economic times, it's hard to keep that spark of confidence going especially without the support of colleagues. I'm no good by myself, my mind wanders off into that murky territory called non-existant self esteem. Hopefully, I can keep the feeling of gratitude going longer so that it will sustain me through the job search and beyond. P.S. thanks be to g-d for giving me the instincts to figure out what I'm getting, what I'm not, and the common sense to know the difference.