Happy Thanksgiving to my friends here in the United States! This is a strange sort of Thanksgiving for just about everyone I know. Smaller gatherings, no travel.
Upon graduating college I entered the Air Force and spent several Thanksgivings away from family. After leaving the Air Force, I lived in Ohio, California, Texas, Illinois, and Ohio again. Some years travel for the holidays was possible. Other years it just wasn’t. I became used to different variations on the theme of turkey, family, and friends. Every year, though, brought the opportunity to reflect on the things that made me feel thankful. And there were so many things. No matter what else was going on. Thanksgiving 2009 was my family’s first Thanksgiving after my beloved brother Robert died. It was my first Thanksgiving knowing that my first marriage had ended. Thanksgiving 2014 saw me still in cancer treatment, and my dad had just died in October. Even in the saddest and strangest circumstances, I learned there was still much for which to be thankful.
Chris returned from California on Sunday. After spending that day in three different airports and two different flights, we knew that our Thanksgiving four days later needed to be different. Sam isn’t home for the holiday either, choosing to stay alone in his apartment for two weeks after his last day of work in a busy cafe. I will pick him up on December 6 and we will have a wonderful Christmas season together.
Chris and I have been avoiding contact with each other since he came home, wearing masks whenever we are in common areas of the house, eating our meals and sleeping in separate rooms. Tomorrow he will go to get his covid test, and if his results are negative we will feel confident eating our Thanksgiving meal together Sunday evening. It’s not a 14 day quarantine, but we feel pretty comfortable with the compromise.
I look at families that have the same Thanksgiving experience year after year after year and sometimes I am envious of those unchanging traditions, in much the same way that I am sometimes envious of couples who have been married for 50+ years. There is definitely something to admire in those situations; situations that my life has not provided. But I am so grateful that my life has given me the opportunity to see that even the things that I didn’t necessarily want to happen, even the challenges and deviations from the “perfect” life that have sometimes thrown me for a loop – none of these things have taken away my deep capacity for gratitude. Indeed, I feel that they have increased that capacity.
Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for you.
Michelle xoxo
P.S. If you want a squirrel-resistant bird feeder like mine, here is the link.