First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you. Holidays and family dysfunction. What's new right? A quick look through facebook and you will see a wide range of meme's on the subject. Same on any other social media. It's like the glue that binds everyone. Most all people can relate to having some family dysfunction on some level or another.
My inlaws have a Thanksgiving tradition of toasting and giving one "I am thankful for...", so last night I laid in bed thinking about what would my toast be this year? What is it that I am thankful for above all else this past year? On my personal page I have been doing the traditional month of thankfulness. Most of which has had something to do with that particular day, but this is like the honorable mention. What is my prized blessing this year?
So, as I laid in bed thinking about it my mind turned to the past, as it most always does. I thought back to my childhood Thanksgivings. Whereas I could say that I could recall times of all day turkey cooking, I could not recall a single time of eating with my family or spending the day together. In fact, when looking over all other holidays, things just kind of came and went. We were not close. We did not spend time together. We did not celebrate. I never even had a single birthday party growing up. Not for any reason that I could explain. We were not poor. Our religion did not dictate against it. We just didn't do things together.
All through my childhood I dreamed of having my own family and how I would do things right. I prized myself on coming out of my dysfunctional family as being "normal" (ha, there is nothing "normal" about me). I had idea's though as to what "normal" was. The ideas one get's in their head are usually as far from what happens in reality as it can get it seems. At least, any time that I have ever dared to imagine.
I didn't really start "celebrating" things until after I had Hope. After moving to Texas and being around my mothers family we began actually having a little bit of a hooha over the holidays. After I married, my husband and I would make the rounds for the holidays (all manners of dysfunction here). After I divorced, I spent one round of holidays back with my mothers family, and the next round with friends from church. The next round of holidays I spent alone with my then boyfriend (whom I now mostly act like that was a relationship that never happened). Then I met my now (and forever) husband, and began spending the holidays with his family.
So, as I am preparing to start working my bread dough.... I'm not sure my toast will come out all that great, I'm not so hot at talking in front of people (not even people I know). It always makes my stomach bottom out. In the event that it doesn't come out right....I am thankful for chances. Seconds and thirds. Even fourth and fifths. Do-overs and selective memory. Whiteout and erasers. I'm still working out the details on how to do things, BUT that's when those chances come in handy.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May you each be blessed with giving and receiving chances. Be quicker to forgive, and slower to anger. Day to day life is promised to no one. Mistakes of the youth are often by an error in thinking that there is always time, and mistakes of the old are often by an error of thinking it's too late. May each of you feel loved today, and every day.
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