Thanks Given.

And so we find ourselves in December. Thanksgiving has come and gone, the winter holidays are just ahead. We are sandwiched right in the middle and it is hard to believe the year will turn into another so soon. I can’t say I’m not thankful for that as there’s a lot about this year I’d like to put behind me.

I spent a good while in Anthropologie today, wandering the aisles and taking down any number of outfits I thought would look good on my little lumpy body, but, lo and behold, come Dressing Room Time, I stood there like I knew I would, hair tousled, skin dry, bags beneath my eyes sinking lower, and not a thing managed to make all those imperfections look any bit better. There’s nothing good about going shopping for clothes at 6pm on a Monday. Especially after a Thanksgiving vacation. I should have just come home, warmed up a piece of pizza, and gotten into my pajamas. Defeated, I threw myself into the subway and slunk home, where now I sit at the dining room table with a warmed up piece of pizza. And I’m too lazy to get in my pajamas. 

A word about Thanksgiving. It had been almost six years, we figured, since I’d joined my family for this meal, and nothing beat the feeling of walking into a warm Albany house and seeing all those familiar faces, wrapping up in warm embraces, introducing Dennis to that half of my heart. There was a new baby, who I held, who cried only when I held him. I didn’t mind at all because I knew he was crying because he was hungry and not because he took offense to me; therefore, I didn’t take offense to him, and rather than passing him off to his parents, opted to hold him a little longer and rock him while standing up, trying to find a way to soothe his little infant worries. It was nice.

We feasted on home cooked everything, welcomed pies and stuffings and mash into our bellies, declared ourselves full. And it was at that point my happiness turned a little sideways. It is a tradition in our family to go round the table and say what we’re thankful for and as the time drew nearer in the evening to do so, I became nervous, afraid of saying what I really felt: I wasn’t thankful for very much. It was a rough year. One I don’t want to remember save for just a few bright moments. Having made a stalwart resolution not to cry, having thrown on a brave face and blurred my focus a bit, I said the year had been a hard one, that I was thankful for coming home, for having Dennis as my best friend, for seeing all those faces again. And that was true, those words I said. But words don’t cover an abyss and I left myself suspended from those gossamers for the rest of the evening, slipping farther away from the rest of the people there, and held on as best I could through the morning. As Dennis and I drove away in the morning back to the City, I felt myself relax and exhale.

A few hours later, we were with his family, huddled around a little table with a spread to challenge the one from the night before, albeit with a Russian twist. There, I ate as if I hadn’t had food in weeks, laughed loud like I know I can, and fell back into my skin. I looked around the table, shared warm true smiles with the few people there. Felt nourished, not neglectful. There, I didn’t need to feel the history or the expectation to repeat history. I was thankful for this family, the one that’s not even mine. It was almost, almost like it used to be when nothing was wrong. There was dancing and laughter and singing and I was finally thankful for real, the kind of thankful I wish I could have been the night before with the family that is mine. 

And that there is the truth. I know no other way of saying it.