It is nearly Thanksgiving–a day for sipping Boone’s Farm and gorging myself on turkey boobs, Stove-Top Stuffing, cream cheese laced mashed potatoes and all our other turkey day favorites with most of my favorite people–so I felt compelled to spell out all for which I am thankful.
Of course I’m thankful for my family, friends, having a roof over my head, food on the table, and my health. That’s easy. I’m going to delve deeper and try to present the why; the what it is about those things for which I’m thankful. So here goes in no particular order.
I am thankful for my daughter who is healthy, happy (except for when she hates me), bright, talented and independent. She is a leader who blazes her own path and does what she knows is right. As long as we make sure what she thinks is right IS what is right– or at least what I think is right– we should be okay. I am thankful for my son who is also healthy, happy (except for when he hates me), bright, and talented with a great sense of humor. He is always acting out some scene like his entire life is an action adventure movie and is never at a loss for words. So when he is around I am always distracted and entertained.
I am thankful for my husband and not just because he takes care of the cats and the kids, does the laundry and the dishes. I am thankful he has always given me the freedom to be me regardless of how crazy and weird I happen to get. He doesn’t always understand and I can’t say he truly “gets me” but he just shrugs his shoulders and goes along figuring I know what the hell I’m doing and if I don’t, we’ll figure it out when it blows up. He’s been there through it all including death and pre-PMDD-medication destruction.
When one starts to talk about being thankful for their life partner and offspring, it naturally leads to thankfulness for his parents, your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and all those circumstances and individuals all the way back to the ancestors that came from civilization to this once God-forsaken country being at the right place at the right time with the right people to make the simple fact we are all breathing even possible. I’m especially thankful for my mom who raised my brother and me on her own with honesty, fun and laughter. She never sugar-coated or sheltered which allowed me to enter the world without blinders. And she did it all still keeping a sense of silliness and fun in our lives, instilling even when things may be dire and there may not be many around to hear it, you can still fill your home with laughter. We may not be the traditional family– she is more apt to gather the grandkids around the computer to watch a you-tube video of someone having diarrhea in a hot tub than around a piano to sing show tunes– but it is true, honest and what makes for the most humorous memories. (The kids even thought it was a tradition and asked for it the following year.)
In summary, I’m thankful for it all–every person, place, thing, event and circumstance shaping my life story even as I write and a new chapter unfolds. I’m thankful for the cave-woman so many centuries ago who thought, “You know what, if we could devise some sort of system for communication, maybe there would be less confusion and deadly blows to the head when someone bids another ‘Good morning.’” I am thankful for Al Gore for inventing the internet so I can keep at least peripherally in touch with those who would otherwise be lost. I am thankful for the individual who sniffed the first coffee bean and thought if he ground it up, poured steaming water over it and sipped it with a little cream, he could have the initial motivation to get out of bed in the morning and start his day. Finally, I am thankful for you, my real or imagined reader because you or at least the illusion of you inspires me to write this blog (almost) every week thinking maybe someday, somewhere, somehow it will inspire you, make you feel something or improve some even minor aspect of your life story. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
