in the season of gratitude. That sounds charming, doesn't it? Gratitude. It has a great flow, lots of vowels and consonants with a funny word in the middle. It looks great on signs hanging in one's dining room. Grateful, thankful, blessed...we're all supposed to be feeling that all the time but especially over the next few days. I mean the holiday has the word THANKS right at the very beginning of it. If you can't find something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving when the fresh hell can you?
We've all seen that part in movies where the family gathers around the table for a beautiful feast. The turkey all golden brown like it just returned from a week at the beach. The table beautifully set with mounds of sides (the BEST part of the meal is the sides). The family dressed casually yet beautifully (no stretchy pants is unrealistic), smiling at each other, folding their hands and saying grace. Then they go around the table and say what they are most grateful for that year. What a beautiful scene. No pressure, right? I mean the people they love the most are sitting right there and they have to say what they are most thankful for that year. How could that go wrong?
Yet they all manage to do it. They all come up with a sweet and heartwarming yet concise statement of what has been their biggest blessing that year. No one repeats each other; everyone's seems similar enough to cover the big ones (family, health and love) yet enough different to keep us from scrolling through TikTok. Then, inevitably, someone stands up and raises their glass and gives the absolute perfect toast summing up everyone else's but of course more eloquently and with an added punch of sentimentality that makes everyone say HERE! HERE! Just precious.
Here's how that goes in most houses, gathered around the table, you have the ones with social anxiety (yes, you can have that even with people you are familiar and close with) who start to squirm and are unable to focus on what other's are saying because they are so stressed about having to speak up and out and get it right...the ones who are just phoning it in because this part is so cringe...the ones who are hangry because dinner is an hour and a half later than expected due to the underestimation of the time it takes to peel 20 pounds of potatoes and because Aunt Becky was an hour late, as usual...the ones who did ALL the work to make this a special day and it's ruined because it's not living up to the expectations they had in their head...and the ones who always go last and pontificate and preach and otherwise go on and on and on trying to reproduce the HERE!HERE! part of the movie while the rest of us are starving and everything is getting cold. I mean COME ON...just say "my family" so we can all dig into those potatoes!
And who carves a turkey at the table? Too messy and time consuming when there's butter rolls to gobble! (See what I did there? Turkey...gobble)
Okay, it is lovely to take a few moments to sit with those we love and be grateful for them and everything we have. It's important really in some ways so that we realize the great privilege we have and generally take for granted in our day-to-day lives. Recognizing that we are blessed is necessary if for no other reason but to encourage us to help where we can and give what we're able to others.
But, because of course there's a but, what if it's been a hard year and we just can't see it? What if in this season we just can't see the sweet in our lives because we're living something incredibly bitter? When one's life is a pile of rubble, how do we pick through it and find the shiny bit that we hold up for others to see? How do we say we're grateful for THIS when THAT is so broken?
Maybe we don't. Maybe we shouldn't have to. Maybe it's unfair to expect ourselves and others to find the good when our burdens are so heavy that finding the good seems like another stone to carry.
Sit with me on the porch and let's talk about the sadness and the hardships this season can also bring, because they are numerous and overwhelming. They create a circle of shame...I'm supposed to feel X because it's the holidays but I'm so frozen in Y and Z, I can't, so I probably deserve X, because everyone has something be grateful for, but my X is so big I can't see anything else. My X is so devastating that it's taking up all the space, so perhaps I deserve X because I'm not counting my blessings.
Or those of us who have had something wonderful happen (say...the birth of a child or grandchild) and yet we still feel the heaviness of something else in our lives. A loss, a life change, a lack of serotonin (not a joke, it's a real thing especially this time of year). We know we should be living in bliss...over the moon...happy as a lark, but we're still struggling, because something really amazing doesn't erase something hard.
The added pressure this time of year exacerbates the bruises and breaks we've experienced. Those wounds can be brand new or old ones that have never or can never heal. We miss people in a different way during the holidays, don't you feel? We count how many Christmases we've not been able to spend with them. A friend who has a son in the military can tell you exactly how many and which Christmases her son has been home for in the past decade. Not many. We count how many years since our last Thanksgiving with a loved one. Or we ache to our bones because this is the first one without them or the second or the whatever number, because no matter how many it's been, they can all still be so hard. We feel their losses more deeply right now, because the empty seat is enormously empty...it's a visceral reminder of a pain so profound we can't verbalize it.
Grateful isn't always easy, and sometimes when it is, it's only able to be felt on a superficial level. Let's imagine the scene around the table in our real lives, shall we? Sister says "family and health", brother says "same", Aunt Betty says, "my children and family and that my bursitis in my hip isn't acting up today", Mom says, "being here together, good food and a healthy family" and Dad says, "You guys and jobs to pay for all this grub, now let's eat it!" I mean, which is more realistic, mine or Hallmarks? And you know what? Both are okay. Both are valid and right.
What's also right and valid is the one who sits staring at their hands with tears rolling down their face because they are heartbroken for whatever reason. The one who is so concerned about the daughter who isn't here with her feet under the table because she's out there somewhere doing things that are causing destruction to herself and her family. The one who misses him so much because it's the first holiday without him but also feels guilty because they can see a glimmer of hope that they won't always carry the intense loss in this way. The one who thought they'd have a baby to shush and hold and feed this holiday. The one who does have a new little stocking to hang, but also carries the fear that because they received something so wonderful, the universe will take something else.
Here's the thing...all of those things exist around almost any table. Just like the foods we eat at that table...bitter and sweet...our hearts can hold both. Our hearts can also at any given moment only have space for one of them.
So here we are, finally, at my point. If you feel bursting to the seams with gratitude this holiday, that's incredible and beautiful and valid and equally important as those who don't. You shouldn't have to dim your joy because other's can't find there's in this moment. Be reasonable, of course. Don't make us all sit there starving while you list all your recent acquisitions or every "atta boy" email you received this year, but do feel the depth of thankfulness as fully as you need to. To be fair, we have to allow those who feel intensely grateful this year to be just that, because life can be hard, yo, and we should celebrate when we feel we can.
Also, equally importantly, we need to allow space for those of us who simply cannot name something. We shouldn't expect them to or force them to mumble a platitude when their hearts are barely holding together. We should let them sit quietly at the table or in their own homes without badgering or pressuring them to BE THANKFUL DARN IT...COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS...FIND THE SILVER LINING! Because some things are just too big and dark to see through or around. Sometimes what we are so deeply ungrateful for is so immense, we simply cannot carry another thing. And that has to be welcomed at our tables too.
So maybe this year, during this season, we allow grief or loss or fear or heartache or the sadness we can't name to have a seat. Perhaps we at least try to put it at the table with the weird cousin who eats with his hands and puts ketchup on mashed potatoes. We allow it to be there; we acknowledge it as a guest, unwelcomed and persistent, who is simply part and parcel of the human experience. Just like we can be grateful any day of the year but especially on Thanksgiving, we can also be bereft on any day of the year but especially on Thanksgiving. There's room at the table for all of us and all of that. If we can fit both the delicious sage dressing and the gross sweet potatoes, we certainly have room for all the emotions the holiday brings with it.
Let's be gentle with each other now and always, but especially now. As for me, I'm grateful for a new little person who will in a couple of years sit at our kid's table, and I'm missing my Delaney and my dad ever so much this year. Maybe in part because of that new little one, my heart feels heavy for my dad who never truly got to experience Grandparenthood and my niece who didn't get to mom nearly long enough.
See, I can do both at once. My heart is overflowing with joy and love and gratitude...but the space that's always full of Dee and Dad and my Grandparents still comes uninvited. And that's okay...it's because I loved them so big and hard, I wish they were here to see me count this new blessing. Bitter and sweet, they both exist often simultaneously and either can consume any moment including a holiday. Let them come, whether you bring them or someone else does. Because pretending they both don't exist doesn't erase them, it makes them louder. Don't hide your gratitude or your sorrow this year. Make room for the heaven and the hell...just don't make room for that cranberry jelly stuff...no body is grateful for that.
MLG 11/17/22 my heart is fuller because of you.
