Accio Thanksgivium

I have a lot for which to be thankful. That might as well be the subtitle of this blog, it's the drum I'm beating at 3 a.m. when you're trying to get some sleep. I'm also pretty in-your-face about my love of Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday and always has been. Of course I appreciate that there's a national day dedicated entirely to the celebration of gratitude. But it wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that the dedication to the eating of delicious food is equally behind my adoration of the fete, if not the winner by a 1% margin.

It also makes me really happy just to hear what makes people happy. I didn't participate in the gratitude challenge that's going around, but I like to hear from those who do. There's so much good to focus on, even when times are tough. It hasn't been an easy year on a lot of people. Most years aren't easy on most people. But in the wake of some pretty awful occurrences, Hurricane Sandy being fresh in my mind, it seems like that's when people come forward with the highest level of thankfulness. There's something about that "it could have been worse" mentality that causes an immediate shift in perspective. It sounds like what I'm going to say next is that I'm thankful for natural disasters. Nope, I'm not. They suck. War sucks. Illness sucks. I don't want bad things to happen to anyone, ever. But they do. I know it's easy for me to say I'm so appreciative, I'm so grateful and this and that when my path is paved with fairy farts and mermaid kisses. I'm in awe that people are able to muster a feeling of basic gratitude at their lowest point, and I can only hope that I am one of those people when my number is inevitably drawn.

The point is, I don't harp on my everyday abundance to be annoying or to put up a front or convince myself of something. I know that the nature of life is so fragile, and I can't be out here writing about all that's wonderful in mine without attempting to make sure everyone who reads this knows I don't feel entitled to it. I don't apologize for what I have or how I feel about it, I just think it's disingenuous to make it look like I'm 100% copacetic and balanced with graceful awareness. There's tons to fear and lament in the big world, and the small one of my experience. I don't talk about it a lot, but it's always there. And I don't think my life is perfect or better than anyone else's. There are things going on that tear at me, and some of these things I'll write about and some I will never write about because they're not my story to tell. I'm believe I am a good person, and I try to be all the time, but I'm also an asshole sometimes. There's lots of ways I could be improved.

At the heart of it though, I just feel so unfairly fortunate to have what I have - the basic creature comforts (and then some). A good job. A great--ridiculously great--loving family and wonderful friends, all of whom I do take for granted sometimes but truly love and cherish. And I've got my own little family, a husband who is the literal, LITERAL best, and our HR, our healthy, growing, learning, amazing, stubborn, funny monkey of a boy. I'm going to display a bit of favoritism here, but it can't be helped. He is the greatest thing that ever came into my life.

It's all enough, and it's all too much for any one person. It's an embarrassment of riches. I don't forsee a life of great wealth for myself, but in all the other ways I've always been loaded and always will be. I'm lucky, I'm blessed, I'm whatever you want to call it, and I will shout my awareness of it from the rooftops until I croak. It's my protection spell, I guess. My religion.

I meant to come in here and make a list of 10 things I'm appreciating this Thanksgiving, like, the cast of Happy Endings and coffee. And then this happened.