Not everyone looks forward to Thanksgiving.   Some people, myself included, associate the holiday not as a joyous one but one to survive.   This year, I am feeling it deeply.   I grew up in a huge messy family.   We all have splintered across the US. The memories of cooking for days, going to the Broadway Market for special things to cook, are just that memories.

My husband is awesome.   He took me to the Broadway Market last weekend.  It isn’t the same, but it made it feel like a holiday.   Memories of time with my grandparents shopping came flooding through. Such happy times with a buzz and so much activity.  I was so sad that half the stalls were empty and just a few people shopping instead of the crowds made it so difficult to move.

The big family holiday thanksgiving gatherings are non-existent in my life these days.  Today I cooked a turkey breast and stuffing to take to my mother-in-laws in NJ tomorrow.  It will just be the three of us.  She is failing in health, so we bend to make it nice for her.   I called her a little bit ago and she wanted to know exactly what time we would be arriving.   She wasn’t happy that it wasn’t 10am, and that she should eat a little something because we won’t eat much before 3.

Thanksgiving this year is about gratitude.

I am so grateful for the friends that have become family.  Sad that family no longer has the meaning it did when I was a child.   The hardest thing is letting go of the expectation that I will ever have a house full of people celebrating a holiday.  Yes I am sad, and I am acknowledging it.   Not hiding the emotions I have over it, I am fulling feeling them.  Stuffing them down and ignoring them hasn’t been working.

It isn’t all sunshine and roses for my husband either.   He too is struggling.   So we are alternating being emotional.   He is strong one moment, me the next.   Never criticizing the other, just holding each other up and making it okay.    Something that neither one of us had for so long.  So for now we will focus on finding a new way.   In the meantime, Thanksgiving affirmation may just help us get through!

If you too are struggling, we send you light and love your way.