Thankfulness

Gratefulness practices are a really good thing. This is the time of year for it. People are either writing about what they’re thankful for or what they’re buying for Black Friday deals. I’m guessing the latter are thankful for affiliate links. 

I could probably spend more time thinking about thankfulness, model it for my kids more, show them all of the parts of life we have to be grateful for: health, family, friends, food, shelter. These are the foundation of a stable life. When one of these is missing or struggling, everything feels a little off-kilter. And yet, these things are often taken for granted when not intentionally listed. 

Here’s an example: these foundational five are intact for us this year. Everyone is healthy. Family is doing well. Friends are great. We have more than enough food and shelter than we need to live. But in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, our oven died. Then the little one had a virus that required a full house cleaning, just to be safe. Then we had mice. The cat killed 3. It was disgusting. This felt like too much, and I didn’t want to sit around thinking of how thankful I was for my overall good life. I was pissed. 

So Thanksgiving Day, I was not feeling thankful. The broken oven meant we needed to be flexible and change our usual holiday plan. I don’t like being flexible when it comes to the holidays. I like doing these things the same way because the traditional ways are guaranteed. Pre-vetted cheer. We know how to roast a turkey and make good stuffing in the oven. We didn’t know if Whole Foods pre-roasted turkey was going to be any good. Plus I was mad I had to spend money at Whole Foods when I’m trying to boycott Amazon and be part of the revolution… 

I probably should’ve been grateful for the push to deep-clean the house since it really needed it, but needless to say, I was not. 

And the mice. Jesus Christ. I understand this happens from time to time. We live near a field. Also some woods. We talked to our parents and to friends who live in our neighborhood, and they all said they’d had mice in the past. I just felt gross and certain I was going to feel little feet scrambling over me in bed. I felt like I hardly slept, and when I did, I saw their weird little beady eyes in my sleep. I may have over-reacted. 

All this is to say that I was overwhelmed this Thanksgiving. 

I’m normally pretty good at keeping perspective, at least when it comes to the overall picture of mine and my family’s life. But obviously there’s an even bigger picture than the welfare of my family. There’s a pall over all American society right now. The world feels a little meaner. My friends just told me about a youth basketball coach on an opposing team to their son.  He wore a MAGA hat and was yelling at kids AND his own assistant coaches, and he walked onto the court during the game to argue with the ref. The kids on these teams are 9. But there’s no limit to bad behavior anymore because people see the president calling a US governor an R-word, a word I was taught not to use when I was a child. 

In the fall, we went to a football game to see our newly-awesome Indiana Hoosiers football team play their first regular season game. The people in front of us purposefully stood the whole game, ensuring that our kids couldn’t see even if they were standing, and these folks were WAITING for confrontation. We ended up moving to a different section to preserve our own peace, but we walked away from that interaction assuming they were trump voters. They weren’t wearing anything to confirm this suspicion, so we very well could’ve been wrong, but that selfish meanness is the hallmark of the trump movement.

I know, I KNOW, that the answer to the unkindness and disgusting behavior, to say nothing of the racist and classist policies, of the orange man and his followers is to get deeper into community with friends and family, where there’s mutual trust and compassion. But I just needed a minute this week. It was all too heavy. It was like I was already at about three-quarters full on bad shit I could handle, and then I went over the edge with these small personal trials.

I feel a responsibility, maybe a need, to always come to some positive conclusion in these essays. Whether it’s because there’s so much negativity out there, or because of some deep ingrained habit to never upset anyone, I’m not sure, but I don’t have it in me today. Sometimes the simple answer seems apathetic, like I’m ignoring all of the people who are being most heavily impacted by this administration. I don’t want to have blinders on. I don’t want to focus only on what’s going right. 

As always, there’s a balance to be found, to be able to carry on with a day. When I’m in an overwhelmed, dysregulated state like I was last week, I’m not helping anyone. I can count my blessings, as my mom would say, while making myself aware of problems and changes I can make. I don’t know what I can do for persecuted immigrants, but I can’t keep my head in the sand about ICE. I don’t know what I can do about the Epstein files, but I can support representatives who demand action based on their contents. It doesn’t feel like a lot. It doesn’t feel like much at all, actually. This sense of powerlessness is what led to easily feeling overwhelmed.

But I needed some time to be alone. I needed to write and read and breathe without anyone asking me for anything or asking me where anything was before looking for it for themselves. I didn’t get that time, so I was grumpy for the holiday. I’m sorry, family. 

I am thankful for my family. I’ll be exceptionally thankful when our oven gets fixed on Tuesday. Would that this thermocoupling had arrived on November 26th.