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Giving Thanks
Nov. 27th, 2009 02:52 pmWriting about this today, since yesterday I was too busy actually celebrating to post about it....
This year, Thanksgiving was rather bittersweet - despite our best efforts, my sister wasn't able to come up and spend the day with us, and my mom, fighting a desperate cold, wound up spending most of her time sleeping and had to leave a couple of days early. I wound up getting some very sad news about an old friend at the end of the day that colored everthing else in retrospect. Our work situation is still... less than ideal.
Even given all that, though, the day was still marvelous. There was family, and there were friends - wonderful friends, and some new people who hadn't been there, hadn't been part of our lives, last year. There was food - although it took a little longer than expected, my first attempt at roasting a whole turkey was still a rousing success, and the gravy was well worth the three hours spent simmering down stock and thickening and straining and deglazing. There was laughter and chatter and shared history and hugs and so many other positive things.
It's easy for me to get caught up in worry - to convince myself that, because things are rough now, that they're always going to be rough, and that our situation in general is worse than it actually is. Days like yesterday remind me that that's not necessarily true. No matter how rough and scary things may be right now, we still have a home. We have enough to eat, and then some - we can still put together a decent fancy dinner for our friends. We have friends, who are here for us whether we need someone to vent to, someone to laugh with, or someone to chop half a dozen cloves of garlic or slice apples while there are three skillets of veggies on the stove and a bowl of potatoes being mashed.
Most of all, we're alive, we're healthy, and we love each other. Our lives, all things considered, are pretty damn excellent.
I have no idea how I came to be so lucky, and so blessed. And I know that in a week or so I'll probably be back to fretting over the mortgage and the fact that I can't be as extravagant with holiday gifts as I usually want to be, and worrying about whether I'll make it down to visit my family for Christmas. But right now, I just want to remember this - how, in spite of everything that's going on, things are good.
This year, Thanksgiving was rather bittersweet - despite our best efforts, my sister wasn't able to come up and spend the day with us, and my mom, fighting a desperate cold, wound up spending most of her time sleeping and had to leave a couple of days early. I wound up getting some very sad news about an old friend at the end of the day that colored everthing else in retrospect. Our work situation is still... less than ideal.
Even given all that, though, the day was still marvelous. There was family, and there were friends - wonderful friends, and some new people who hadn't been there, hadn't been part of our lives, last year. There was food - although it took a little longer than expected, my first attempt at roasting a whole turkey was still a rousing success, and the gravy was well worth the three hours spent simmering down stock and thickening and straining and deglazing. There was laughter and chatter and shared history and hugs and so many other positive things.
It's easy for me to get caught up in worry - to convince myself that, because things are rough now, that they're always going to be rough, and that our situation in general is worse than it actually is. Days like yesterday remind me that that's not necessarily true. No matter how rough and scary things may be right now, we still have a home. We have enough to eat, and then some - we can still put together a decent fancy dinner for our friends. We have friends, who are here for us whether we need someone to vent to, someone to laugh with, or someone to chop half a dozen cloves of garlic or slice apples while there are three skillets of veggies on the stove and a bowl of potatoes being mashed.
Most of all, we're alive, we're healthy, and we love each other. Our lives, all things considered, are pretty damn excellent.
I have no idea how I came to be so lucky, and so blessed. And I know that in a week or so I'll probably be back to fretting over the mortgage and the fact that I can't be as extravagant with holiday gifts as I usually want to be, and worrying about whether I'll make it down to visit my family for Christmas. But right now, I just want to remember this - how, in spite of everything that's going on, things are good.
