Thanksgiving...ANY way you want it...

Balance Balance Balance Balance

I'm hearing it a lot because of what today is "supposed" to mean.
I'm sitting at a Starbucks near my parent's house...doing school work
I walk in the door and get cut-off...by a guy in CLERGY garb.
I go for the half /half and get shoved into the garbage bin.
The barrista's aren't smiling like they should at a Starbucks.
My computer's out of battery...
I ask the neighbor for the plug,
She gives me a dirty look and says it probably won't reach.
There's no eye contact being made
Certainly not random strangers sharing Thanksgiving happiness.
The snappiness, the rudeness, the lack of "swell spirit"...it drives me bitter.
I close my eyes and breathe
I take Nashville out of my heart and put her on the table and starte.
I think of everything I love....all the people I love.
I cry...but hold it in.
Because I "should" be grateful today...of all days...for all I have.

So I get out my phone.
I start to write thank you texts
160 characters or less can't possibly convey my gratitude
I switch to email....
and I start writing...to everyone that's out of reach.
I give my gratitude to THEM...
Sharing bits and pieces of special things I carry around with me no matter where I am.
I cry inside some more.

Then I see a friend approaching
My old friend Mr. Guilt comes running to my table.
He says that in my gratitude for those over THERE
I'm silently expressing wastefulness....for all that I have HERE.

Unsure what to do, I come here and write.

In sincere honesty...
what's in my heart is resentment...not gratitude.
Anger that I haven't yet gotten through the loss.
It sounds so easy...It's been a year.  I have so much.
But I can't think of it today.
I'm stuck.
Me....stuck...imagine that

And then...it strikes me.
So what if I'm stuck!!!
So what Teresa!!!
So what if I'm angry!
So what if today I feel like I hate New Jersey
would give anything to jump off a plane in Nashville.

(Brace yourself...because here comes the cheesiness)

In EVERYTHING you can find some gratitude.
I can be grateful...
grateful that I got to experience that love in Nashville.
Grateful that my friendships there were soo wonderful that I'm still mourning them.
Grateful that I was so pissed off at Jersey people...with their attitudes
Grateful....because that means I know what selflessness CAN be.
Grateful that I can write about my bitterness and that others will listen...
Grateful that I have that freedom...at least here. 

In group yesterday, a client was feeling particularly hopeless.
Another client replied........

"Be grateful for hating life....for wanting to die....
because those feelings mean you're STILL alive and fighting."
It was a strange and scary thought at the time...
Today it makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I'm sure that somewhere
deep in my brain another
some part of me sings about the things I DO have to be grateful for
some part thinks the type of things people will say around the table:
For family and a home and a beautiful daughter and an education.

But until I accept and love this part of me that hurts today,
I won't even think about the other stuff.
And.....that's OK,
I learned today...that it's OK
because the bad feelings,
no matter how ugly and scary they sound,
are feelings to be grateful for too.

Wishing you a Thanksgiving...anyway you want to feel it...