Finding Appreciation in the Dumpster

It's been awhile since I truly celebrated this holiday but, man, I have a lot to be thankful for...

I did not lose a loved one in a mass shooting this year.

I did not have to resort to dumpster diving for random cans of garbanzo beans and packets of Ramen to eat a meal after days of going hungry.

I did not have to sleep in my car or somewhere outside.

It's been a helluva year, gang.

I'm not gonna waste your time retelling the sordid details but, yeah, it has definitely sucked balls from stem to stern. I've had a few bad years in the fifty-six thus far, but this one ranks right up there in the top three. I wonder, when the trajectory of your life trends in a dramatic down spiral, how mind wrenching it might be to find anything worth gratitude?

Simple. Look at the things others have had to endure with a bit of humility and grace and understand that no matter how bad shit got in your year, someone else had it much worse.

Thanksgiving in Chicago used to be fun. I'd buy a whole bunch of food and booze, cook all the day before, and a houseful of theater-types would come over and enjoy it. An Orphan's Turkey Day. A place for those not able to go to their respective homes and eat with their families. A family gathering of choice. It was genuinely a grand time to reflect upon those things and people we could be grateful for having in the year preceding it.

By the time we were in Vegas, the tradition of even having a prepared Thanksgiving meal was a thing of the past. The holiday became just an opportunity for me to have some turkey from someplace selling it. The idea of reflecting on gratitude on a specific holiday was sort of lost. The idea of continuing to use 'we' in context of my time in Nevada still grates.

I did not get an incurable STD despite my partner having wanton sex with multitudes of strangers.

I did not have to sell my plasma or sperm to make my car payment.

I did not lose myself in an orgy of alcoholic self destruction following the revelation that I was a rube unknowingly facilitating the double life of my partner.

Today, for the first time since before the first World War, I'll be having a Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Mom, dad, sister, niece, nephew. I'm cooking the turkey, a rope of German sausage, my favorite sweet potato/egg nog casserole, wild rice, spinach. Mom is cooking cornbread stuffing, broccoli salad, homemade rolls. Pies were purchased a head of time because that shit takes science to bake.

My mom will be taking plates of food to a number of her neighbors who are too infirm to travel which is a bit like the orphans of Chicago. The whole experience is like a very cool window into a kind of family life I left behind forty years ago with the abandon of youth and wanderlust.

I do get to spend time with my family before it's too late and I won't regret this time.

I get to place the segments of my life and take the time to examine them like an archeologist comparing eras.

While having things definitively did not work out the way I had planned or expected, I still get to dream of more experiences.

It's difficult to be grateful for things when circumstances turn out bad but there are so many who have it worse than I do and so many big and little aspects to my day worth noting and giving thanks for that I'd be a real whiny bitch to complain much more than I do.

This turkey.

My incredibly generous (and super fun) mother.

This sweet potato casserole.

Time to recover in a home with a bed.

These homemade rolls.

My dad's stories.

This piece of pie.

The solid ground beneath my feet to springboard as high as I'd like tomorrow (weight gain taken into consideration).

Turns out I'm grateful for a lot. The gravity Chicago brought to my legs. The fact that my legs still work. Joe, David, Bob, Donnie, Eric, Ari, Kelli, Diane, Heidi, Jennifer, Wency, Pete, Erik, Charlie, Jason, Jarret. Soon enough, all of my worldly possessions will be unpacked in a new place somewhere in Wichita. Soon enough, I'll be in Denver or Chicago or Austin. Soon enough, I'll be writing more words that will be read by, like, seven people.

For right now, I'll relax in my King Spa shorts and begin tomorrow with a bit more to look forward.

Happy Thanksgiving.