It's that time of year again where we're reminded that we should be thankful for what we have and appreciate that there are those who aren't as fortunate as us. When I was younger I liked this time of year because it was this flurry of holidays and birthdays for the last part of the year. It usually meant a break from school and a chance to be without obligations for awhile. As I got older the significance of the holidays got to be less important. They quickly became just another day off of work or a chance to sleep in. Don't get me wrong, Thanksgiving was good when it was celebrated, but over the years it became very much a hit or miss type of holiday. I think part of that is because the time surrounding Thanksgiving has been filled with great changes.
It was the day after Thanksgiving eleven years ago that I moved to my current state. At the time I thought I was leaving very little, but once I arrived here I immediately realized that something didn't feel quite right. Turns out there were people I left behind that I cared about and it was only after I left that I realized their significance to me. Fast forward ten years and last Thanksgiving marked the last time I would ever see them. So instead of a physical change, it was an emotional one. For me that's really solidifies what Thanksgiving is all about though. It's a chance to see what's really important to us because things can change quickly. For many people the years can blend into each other with very little change. Thanksgiving, or really any day, may seem no different than the previous year's counterpart. There are those days though where in the span of a year there have been massive changes. Sometimes these are for the good and sometimes they can be for the worse, or at least seem like the worst. As that Zen master would say "We'll see".
Most of the Thanksgivings I've celebrated as an adult also serve as a reminder how nomadic my holiday seasons tend to be. As a kid it was just assumed that Thanksgiving dinner would be spent with family. Occasionally there would be a guest or we'd possibly go to someone's house, but for the most part it was just the four of us. Starting with college I spent my Thanksgivings with an array of different people, some of whom I've only seen that one time. I've never been in a position to host a Thanksgiving and to be honest it never occurred to me to even attempt it. So instead over the years there would be various invitations to family gatherings. Some years there would be nothing and I'd spend the holiday alone, enjoying the fact that for an entire Thursday I could do whatever I wanted. Every so often I would get down about the fact that on those occasions I had no one to spend the day with.
In the end though it's just a day. It's good to have a day filled with food and family, but it doesn't have to be a government sanctioned day in November. The obvious thing to say is that we should always be thankful for what we have, but it's easy to take things for granted because we assume that it will be there when we want it. As I mentioned things can change quickly between the years and it's usually when you stop appreciating something that you lose it. It's always easier to see the things we don't have or the things we don't like. The negatives in our lives have a strange way of eclipsing the positives if we let them. Now I'm not saying don't pay attention to those things in your life that aren't what you want. Dwelling on them may not actually do anything for the situation, other than make sure you're focused on the wrong things. This isn't some rant about the power of positive thinking either. You can think all the happy thoughts you like, but if you never follow it up with positive action then it's just as effective as sprinkling fairy dust on a broken leg. I think part of the whole process of giving thanks is to identify the things in our lives that are positive and hopefully take what's good and spread it throughout the other areas that could use a little bit of help. Life will never be perfect and even if it was, I think there would be the fear that eventually it would abruptly end, which would negate its perfection. Knowing that we have to try and remember to be thankful for the things in our life that may not be perfect, but get pretty close on occasion and in this world that's pretty damn good.
