Thankful

This hasn't been an easy year. And maybe that's an understatement. I suppose they warn you that life only gets more difficult the more of it you live but that's much easier said than understood. From one Thanksgiving to the next, I've had a lot of wonderful moments. These days, I'm pulling beauty from the wonderful and strength from the broken. Tonight I feel like calling this extraction Operation Deciding to Be Happy, which sounds like something calculated or somehow formulaic...but it is no more deliberate than waking up in the morning and (maybe) deciding on that second cup of tea: Always a better direction than the alternative.

The third Thursday of November has a funny way of creeping up on us and of being forgotten under a heap of premature Christmas carols and a snowballing enthusiasm for, well, snowballs! I buy into the Hallmark aspects of Thanksgiving, solely because too many days transpire where 'thank you's are forgotten or have somehow become replaced with vowel-less, day-late "thnx" messages or the implied-notice. Too much goes under-appreciated, every day, but Thanksgiving is about shattering the expectation of nothingness (at least to me) and remembering that every moment is a gift. 


Now that it's very much the end of "December Fools Day," and I'm back in my comfy bed, alone, in the solitude of Monday, I can't help but think that everything happens for a reason. I am thankful for those reasons, more than the actions they prompted. Just like I am more thankful for today than yesterday. Left to our own devices, I think we are predisposed to finding joy- which is why it's so contagious. Why everyone goes to the Columbus Circle holiday market...why we all purchase multiple garlic graters and convince ourselves that the first person to kiss our garlic fingers will love us better. 

I don't know if we ever necessarily get loved "better." Whether time can chart an emotional-improvement, like one does wine or cheese but, how lucky are we, if time can make us appreciate?! If time can teach us what we need from others, from ourselves, and time can prepare us to spot the signs. There are close to 9,000 hours in a year. If 24 of them are spent exercising the "th" of your tongue, that is 24 hours that reminds our genetic makeup that it isn't enough to have supersonic texting-thumbs, generations from now, but that we cannot lose our faculties for fondness. 

I am fond of most things. And then I have my favorites, most of which are in New York or found in long novels with rousing plot twists. So here's a new twist: Pulling beauty from the wonderful and strength from the broken won't necessarily result in a fairy tale but in Monday night sanctuary, fuzzy onesies, and garlic fingers. And that's certainly a step in the right direction. 

May you always have more thankful thoughts than (garlic) fingers to count them!