Thank You

Thanksgiving has always seemed like a funny holiday to me.

Don't get me wrong - it's a lovely idea to set aside a day to count our blessings, especially in a country where most of us are so very affluent but manage to suffer from a feeling of disenfranchisement. But like most holidays, the true meaning always seems to get lost amid commercialism and food.

It's always been a difficult time for me - for years because I spent the day with my family, and later because I didn't. The last time I shared Thanksgiving dinner with my family was in 1999. I ended up crying in a dark bathroom after my 35-year-old brother chased me around with a camera all night taking ambush pictures of my fat bloated body. My perverted uncle found me in the dark and told me I needed to lighten up, all the while trying to feel me up.

For a few years after that I used work as an excuse to avoid the family - I volunteered to work the holidays at every newspaper, and told my mother I had no choice. After that, I just flat-out refused to go. My mother didn't understand, even when I cited that last miserable Thanksgiving and a Christmas dinner when I had to pull a boyfriend's five-year-old son away from the perverted uncle and flee into the night with them.

Thanksgiving feels a little strange this year too - last year, Dear Husband and I hosted a big dinner for a bunch of friends. This year, I had to turn down a couple of out-of-town mercy invitations (thanks guys) because my friend K has been in the hospital for more than a week. So I'm going to eat chinese food and see a movie with a friend whose family lives on the other coast.

As usual, I have so many reasons to be thankful. K has made an improbable recovery - I really thought I was going to lose him this time - and is coming home from the hospital today. And I'm blessed in so many other ways - sobriety, friends, dogs, and all those other things that I sometimes take for granted.

Thank you, whoever is pulling the strings. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.