Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No commercialism, no pressure, no hoops to
jump through. You choose the people you
want to be with and sit down with them for a good meal and reflect on the
blessings in your life. It’s simple and
relaxing and when it’s over you don’t have to rearrange your kids’ bedrooms to
fit in all the new stuff they really didn’t need.
I make it a point each Thanksgiving to really think about
the things I’m thankful for, and to share some of those things both here and
with the people in my life. As usual,
there are many. But this year, I’m feeling
most thankful for my worldview.
See, in the past few weeks I’ve lost (for different reasons
a few days apart) a major source of income and my medical insurance. I also ended a very significant
relationship. Oh, and when I set out to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I had a problem with my stove that should have been an easy fix but ended up with Tori and I sitting on the porch in a very cold rain waiting for the gas company.
But I’m feeling good. If you only know me through this blog or you’ve
only known me for a few years, it probably won’t be immediately obvious what a
big deal that is. Because you probably
don’t know—you probably can’t even imagine—that between the ages of 13 and 27,
I was suicidal at least as often as not.
I even made a half-hearted attempt in law school, washing down pills
with a bottle of wine in front of the television. I was spacing them out to
make sure I didn’t throw up, and my life was saved for the stupidest and
tritest of all reasons (talk about things to be thankful for!): I got caught up
in an episode of LA Law and stopped
taking the pills because I didn’t want to pass out before I saw how it ended.
In one of those ironic but beautiful twists that life brings
us, a stalker who came just a little too close to killing me saved my
life. Or perhaps it would be more
appropriate to say that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder saved my life. How those catastrophic events healed my life
is another story for another day, but I often say (in complete sincerity) that
having my life threatened, losing my business and having to flee the state to
save my life is the best thing that ever happened to me. Much to my surprise, it freed me to be happy.
So today, as always in recent years, I am thankful for many
things. I’m thankful for my children and
grandchildren, for my amazing friends, for the way that writing transports me
and for the flexibility of the past few years (even if it turns out that it’s
time to venture back into the workday world).
But mostly, I’m thankful that the challenges that have arisen in the
past few weeks don’t affect my ability to laugh with my daughter, to love my
life, to take positive action where I can and to smile automatically when I
walk out the door in the morning and see the sun. Or, you know, a nice clean, cold rain.
That’s the greatest gift, I’m convinced. No life is entirely smooth, but if you can be
happy in the midst of challenges, you have everything.
