Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. It’s simple. At least in my life it has been a simple holiday. No huge commercial hype. No pressure to give or receive the perfect gift. As someone who enjoys cooking and eating, what’s not to like? It was the only holiday that I don’t remember my parents fighting. Maybe, for two Polish immigrants, there was no baggage of holidays past to trigger whatever triggered them all the time.
I don’t think it really has anything to do with my birthday being at the same time. In fact, I hated being called a turkey baby in elementary school. Fortunately, two other classmates had the exact same birthday, so we endured it together. What are the chances of three kids who aren’t triplets in the same class having the same birthday?
It never was about dwelling on what I was grateful for either. We’re supposed to do that all the time, right? I’ve never been good at that and, over the past couple of years, I’ve gotten worse. After giving up feeling guilty for only being able to come up with lame things like, “I can go grocery shopping wearing shorts all year long,” a new friend shared some of her experiences and made me feel a little less horrible as a person.
She recalled how she would get so very angry driving down the road if she saw a man around her husband’s age jogging or biking. Why can he be healthy and her husband could not? When hospitalized, after years of illness and my friend’s caregiving, a nurse encouraged her husband to write down what he was grateful for each day. It wasn’t many days after starting to do that he died. While she enjoyed reading the wonderful things he wrote about the nurses in the hospital, she realized he never mentioned her. Listening to her was one of those “if you know, you know” moments that make you sad and comforted at the same time.
I’ve decided that I might be better at expressing gratitude instead. The idea may have subconsciously planted itself last year when the whole extended holiday season was turned upside down for us. I did not fall back on the rote action of sending gifts and asked for nothing to be sent here due to not being home on a regular basis. Was I the only one who felt a sense of relief to break that cycle? Does an “I’m thinking of you and appreciate you” surprise occasionally hold more meaning?
If that was the seed, maybe that’s what popped into my head in the middle of a massage yesterday. Instead of my usual “a little something extra for the holidays” tip, I’m trying an “I appreciate what you do for me” extra Thanksgiving tip. Just saying those words felt like so much more. If I can’t be good at being grateful, maybe I can work on showing gratitude.
Recharting at a new latitude 