The fucking holidays, they are upon us. And! Are you feeling festive? I am trying to feel festive!
I do not go home for the holidays, because home is where my mother is, and spending time with my mother is not the path down which sanity lies. The past two years in law school I spent Thanksgiving with someone to whom I can no longer speak. This year, some very kind, wonderful friends of mine are hosting a big dinner, and it is a potluck, and I am making zucchini latkes, and collard greens, and I know there are a lot of other dishes planned but I am completely fixated on the fact that we are having gluten-free pumpkin cream cheese whoopie pies, I am not shitting you. No, I don't know, either.
I wasn't sure I was going to go to this dinner. I'd been feeling kinda lonely lately, and its been a hard semester, and I was tempted to be all Fuck It and instead spend the entire holiday holed up in my house with my loneliness.
That would have been a terrible call.
I mean, hey: sometimes alone time is wonderful time. And I have been pretty solitary of late, but I've been working through a lot of shit, and it's been really productive. Like, hey, my rapist decided to text me! But I was ok with that! (Holidays make everyone a little crazy and desperate. Hence the text from him, I am thinking.) So, you know, I've been making good, productive use of my time to myself. I'm feeling pretty fucking grounded.
Yet I knew that if I spent the holiday by myself, and gave into the voice that was urging me to lock myself away from everyone, I would have been listening to the (very convincing and seductive) voice of depression. No, to that. And so I am going to dinner, and I am very, very excited (truly I am: once I had committed to dinner and depression had officially lost that battle, I did indeed get into the holiday spirit)(again: pumpkin cream cheese whoopie pies). But here's why I am also super excited: the person for whom I have been most grateful over the past few months is coming to dinner with me.
Hey, remember when I talked about how much I hate clinic? I hate clinic. Clinic has been the suck. It has been the bane of my existence since September. And I didn't realize how oppressive it had become until my last big clinic assignment was turned in on Monday, and all of a sudden, my whole life felt AWESOME. Like great burdens the size of several elephants had lifted from my shoulders, etc. and so forth, you get it. The fun twist to this is I got two new clinic assignments today, because AHAHAHAHA.
BUT WHATEVER. You know the one thing that did not suck about clinic? My partner. My partner, whom we are going to refer to as A., is the best. She is a wonderful, funny, smart lady who is so easy to work with it is astounding. We were always on the same page, always there to validate each other, help each other when we needed it, decompress with each other after something particularly appalling had occurred. Also, A. possesses the world's most endearing quality: the more stressful and nutty and difficult things get, the more she laughs. She just laughs. Things go horribly wrong, and she cracks up. You need a partner like this. For like everything, you guys, seriously, except maaaybe changing a lightbulb, and even then, it's nice. You never know what could go wrong, and it's always good to have someone on hand to laugh in case of emergencies.
A. has truly been my greatest source of sanity for the past several months. Like last Friday, we were in the clinic building working the entire damn day, from 9.30 in the morning until I think 8. At some point our supervisor needed to complete something, so we wandered off to amuse ourselves for 20 minutes. We went into the supply room, and found a box of rubber bands. And let me tell you, it was ALL OVER. We shot rubber bands all over the place. We had a contest to see who could shoot them the farthest. We acted like 12 year olds, and I laughed so hard I had tears.
People who know how to play are the most precious people of all.
So this Thanksgiving, the person for whom I am most thankful is going to be sitting next to me at Thanksgiving dinner. And I actually have to be thankful to the clinic for this, too - I am friends with my clinic partner now. And if the price for her friendship was all the bullshit I had to put up with in clinic, it was all so very worth it.
I hope everyone has a happy, healthy, warm, and yummy Thanksgiving if you celebrate. And if you don't celebrate, I hope to release enough goodwill into the world that it will reach you, and you will feel it, wherever you are. Also, I will eat a whoopie pie for you.
Now, Readers, if you would be so kind to share: what are you thankful for?
I have never had a whoopie pie in my life! Please eat two or three for me.
ReplyDeleteItems of thanks:
1) KITTENS
A few months ago I moved to a new city to live with my partner. Most of the friends I have here are friends I have poached from him—they are, like, colleagues or spouses or friends of colleagues. There are two that have been particularly awesome to me, and they have THREE KITTIES. Coffee and baking dates over there usually end in at least one cat draped casually around the back of my neck, purring into my ear. It is THE SINGLE GREATEST THING. The friends are also great, too.
2) PARTNER
I have never been with someone before with whom fights are considerate and respectful, and nobody shouts or swears at anyone else, and no objects are thrown, and nobody gets grabbed and shoved around. I am sort of blown away by the idea that someone might be gentle with me just because I asked. Just SO grateful.
3) VEGETABLES
My CSA box this week has a dozen winter radishes the size of my fist in it. Some of them are hot pink on the outside, like regular radishes but bigger, and some of them are tennis-ball-sized and cream-coloured on the outside but inside they're magenta. Like somebody wrapped a beet in a turnip. They are all only mildly peppery and I can barely stand how delicious they are, and how awesome-looking.
Oh gosh, one more: right now I am making a just-adequate-enough living doing something that I absolutely love. Even when I am frustrated with it, it never gets boring and it feeds my soul and makes me feel fulfilled and at peace. It's not anything I was educated for and it's not a sustainable long-term strategy, but right now? It's just incredible. Thanks, world, for letting me do it.
ReplyDeleteThis blog. You have no idea how much I learn here.
ReplyDeleteLaughter. Oh Gayle, I would love your partner. This is something that I do too. At a certain point, you must either implode, or laugh. Laughter it is, then! Because life keeps going, and laughter is a wonderful thing. Your post reminded me of the rubber band fights I used to have with my cousins...
What I'm most thankful for today though... my son, and his father. My son, because he loves me always even though I never manage to do all I would like to do with him or for him, and his father because he willingly gives my son up to me every holiday that I ask for, because these are the only times there is both no school and no work. He doesn't do it grudgingly.
This visit, I even managed to get sick within hours of his arrival, but we find joy in the little things... going to the park for an hour. Sitting in the sun. Playing a random card game by the light of a single tea light candle because that was all the light my migraine would bear. And even though these little things are so much less than what I would like to do with him, I'm incredibly thankful that when these little things are all that I can manage, he loves me still.