Not So Thankful and Yes, Thankful Too

(This is the obligatory Thanksgiving post I didn't mean to write and then -- whoa! -- did. I think the early holiday boozing oven fumes are getting to me. So type type type I did and you can read if you want when you can):

I am not so much thankful for the grey hair I don't really think I've earned. I think it was forced on me by things beyond my control, and I don't just mean my kids' being kids or DNA code, but maybe a mix of both and about twelve other things, or at least two*. Still, dudes, when you are 38 and find something grey in your freakin' eyebrow? Maybe if I was a professor of English -- a MALE professor of English -- or some such thing, but c'mon now! Travesty. Not MILFy.

(I am not thankful for the mental image I just created about myself. Let's just call the thing blonde and be done with it. Let's channel someone grey-hair-less and MILF-like and let's make that person me. K? Okay.)

I am not so much thankful that my friends are losing jobs, like Two Busy and Ciii and Manager Mom. It's feeling chronic. I am not thankful that the news everyday might as well be predicting an alien invasion on Tuesday, total world devastation on Wednesday, and I would like to encourage a little less hyperbole on that front. 

Also: not thankful for the yelling I do too much that gets me nowhere, not thankful for spending more money at Target on socks and shite than I do at the bookstore, not thankful for being misunderstood by college roommates who you'ld think might know me better, not thankful for wondering if they were right all along and not thankful for when I realized NO! they were wrong but I still never called, not thankful for fights with the Kid about politics when God knows there are better things to fight about. And make up over.

Not thankful for cigarettes. I swear, I'm not thankful for those. Most of the time.

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I am so very, very much more than thankful, downright grateful in fact, that my children seem to thrive despite me. Very grateful that Bridget's recent visits to the guidance counselor are more about growing up then actually doing wrong. Very grateful that Rory seems to hold true to herself even as the boys she plays with every day are starting to realize she's a girl. Very grateful that the GFYO is more funny than malicious. Very grateful to still have a buddy to do errands with, have lunch with, especially since I know this is the beginning of the "last firsts" as my friend Kimba has said.  

I am thankful that my young and beautiful cousin is still in remission and totally healthy, and that the rest of my family is too, even my dad, who's had a slew of surgeries but still rambles on. I'm thankful for my mom, who I think might in fact be immortal, and who is probably busy making a Paddle round robin schedule as I type. (I've often thought it was trite when people mentioned "health" as a thing to be thankful for... but I know so much better about that since then.) I am thankful to have two sisters who I like (most of the time) and who can stand with me as examples for my own daughters.

 

I am thankful that my best friends from college (and high school and beyond) are healthy and happy despite what I might have done or never did. I am thankful for the grace of a sweet goodbye I am only just now getting to know and accept.

I am thankful that the leaves have all fallen and I don't have to trudge through them anymore or sneeze at their molding carcasses. I am thankful that I have neighbors with doors as open as mine. I am thankful for a bunch of homies in the Small Town, whose big parties and simple gestures and long conversations make the whole thing better and funner. Yeah, funner: because I like that word more than the alternative two words. 

I am thankful for the fact that I can fill my fridge when it's empty, buy new shoes if someone needs them, go to the doctor whenever we have to, and if I wanted to, I could leave the Kid and marry the Awesome Babysitter, but since I don't want to do that so much, I am thankful that other people can -- at least here, in the great pot-smoking, gay-loving, over-taxing, about-to-be-freezing State of Massachusetts. 

I am thankful for the Book and the friend I am doing it with. 

Also, lastly, I am so, so thankful for a page amongst billions. 

One page, a bunch of words, a few rants (!), some stories, some thinky ideas, a little tuneage: and a trusted new neighborhood of disparate stranger friends who I have never met and might never meet** and who have made the blah blah blah and sometimes yada yada and sometimes OMG a two-way conversation I never imagined I might have. And without getting maudlin, which maybe I already have (dammit), you disparate stranger friends: I am thankful for you.

See you Monday (or maybe sooner, if I get drunk enough and have wifi -- ooo! that'll be good right Carolyn?) but until then, best of everything and please, dear people, my lovely and loved disparate stranger friends, remember as much as you can of what you do so I can read about it next week.

*How mysterious I  seem to be. Hmmm....

** Blogher. Chicago. Just saying. Me and Carolyn: not to be missed. Beer. Wine. Big small talk. Fun. You.