Thanksgiving Celebrations

Today was glorious. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and the leaves on the ground were crunchy underneath my feet. It is Fall. It is still Fall, by God, NOT winter, but Fall. And it's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving as it should be.

Many, many years ago, a little over thirty years, to be exact, my husband and I enjoyed Thanksgiving in our Virginia Beach townhouse.  I think it was our first Thanksgiving in Tidewater. Both our families were several hours away. So our family traditions were always nuclear. That Thanksgiving we had all of the trimmings, turkey, and stuffing and cranberry sauce and gravy and sweet iced tea. Everything you could want for a Thanksgiving celebration. 

My husband loved making videos back then, and he made a video of our celebratory preparation. As we sat down to begin to eat, Jordan asked me to tell the camera about our special Thanksgiving. As I was glowing about what a feast we were going to have, I said it's our last Thanksgiving for just the two of us. Then pushed back my chair to expose my very pregnant belly, and said, "Because we're going to have a baby".

The baby came less than a week later. Today she is just as pregnant as I was. She will have a sweet baby girl before Christmas. Oh, and today is her 30th birthday. She and Sam came to spend the day with me. Our last holiday before they are parents. They made me incredibly happy. We recreated a tradition that we had when we lived in Seattle. 

In Seattle, we started the Thanksgiving tradition of eating at Maggiano's. They offer a family-style traditional meal. Ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing. We enjoyed hearing other families enjoying their day as we enjoyed ours.  Danielle's birthday is always very close to Thanksgiving. We enjoyed celebrating her special day at Maggiano's. And today Sam and Danielle gave me the gift of recreating our tradition, one last time before everything becomes new.

A Little Flow Helps

This is what I spent my Sunday doing....decorating just a little. It's really very little but somehow gives me joy. And it gave me joy while I was putting it together. 

I don't think I'll put up a tree this year. I did last year and thought it was a milestone of sorts. It's an odd place that I live in now. I'm still trying to actually figure out how to live alone. Some days I wake up and think, "Yes, this will be a good day". [ Side note: for some reason when it's not the weekend, I wake up and think, "Why is my body saying, 'No!'?" But this isn't really the point.] 

That feeling of emptiness is growing fainter. Right this minute, I'm sitting on the couch with the pre-game show on. [Tonight is Greenbay vs. San Fran.] Thank goodness for football. I like the beauty of a perfect pass and the thrill of a TD. I like that a play can surprise me. Football is festive. When I have it on I am hearing a tiny party in my living room.  I need a little frivolity in my life. Any time I hear (or say) the word "frivolity" I think of my friend Janis. Goodness, I miss her.

Some moments I find my flow and I'm content. Today it came while hanging twinkle lights. Sometimes I mourn not being a part of a "We". Finding my way in this life~in this moment~ is awkward. I am awkward. It's all part of my new reality.

Moment to Moment

It's almost a year since I created this new space. It's a good thing I've given myself permission to post irregularly, erratically, even.

I have so many special experiences that I have not written about. Lots of firsts. Lots of things I had never really done "on my own" before.  Lots of "look at me", "I did that" moments. My vision, a year ago, was that this would be where I tell those sorts of stories. 

I enjoy looking back at my first blog...the one that was "BEFORE". I just looked back to remind myself of the type of things I talked about. My memory was that it included small moments. In my mind, it's the small moments that make up a life. It's in the small moments that, if you are lucky, and you pay attention, you can recognize happiness, contentedness, joy. 

It's a beautiful thing when you can recognize happiness in the actual moment. 

I emphasize the happy moments because they can be so easily missed. I don't know if that is true for everyone. I do know that times of grief or depression can be overwhelming. Grief has been a backdrop in my life for a while now. I'm learning to live through grief. 

I mentioned depression too. I might as well say I have suffered from severe depression. Depression that feels like a dark abyss with no end. I rarely talk about this, because I'm "in remission", and I've been in remission for a very long time. I'm mentioning it now in case it helps anyone out there reading this.  Please know that depression CAN be managed. While in the depths of depression our minds (and hearts) can play tricks on us. We can believe that this is the best that we will feel for the rest of our lives. You have to have faith to get through that. --I don't mean (necessarily) a spiritual faith -- although that can absolutely help. What I mean is a faith that this is not the rest of your life. That one day you'll be able to feel good things again. 

Since I'm sharing about depression, I will also say that, for me, depression comes with a large dose of guilt. Guilt that you are feeling "down" when you have been given so many things in this life. Guilt that you know you are loved and yet, it doesn't feel like enough to sustain you. Guilt that you are a burden to the people you love so much. Guilt because you can look at your life and recognize that it is beautiful...but you feel unworthy. 

If you are feeling any of those things, ask for help. If the first person you ask to help you doesn't see your pain and give you permission to feel it, then ask for help from someone else. Ask until you are heard. Ask until you believe that you can be helped. 

I remember it was little moments that helped me know that I was coming out of depression. I had felt so bad for so long I didn't think I would ever feel joy again. It started small. One day I was walking to the car and heard a bird sing, and for that brief moment, I did not feel sad. The depression was nowhere near lifted at that point. But that small moment gave me hope. Gradually, small moments of joy weaved themselves into longer moments. Moments bled into other joyful moments. It happened so slowly that I was not able to pinpoint the exact moment depression lifted.  

I do not take my mental state for granted. It's only been in the last several years that I could let go of the fear that the darkness of depression would return. Depression has bled through at times. But I am diligent in recognizing my symptoms. I can acknowledge it before it gets out of control and I can use healthy strategies to get through.