Thanksgiving

Mood: Pensive
Theme Song: "Alice's Restaurant", Arlo Guthrie

This blog post is going to be a little bit different. I normally don't post about personal things, choosing instead to focus on the hilarity that is my everyday existence here in England. But today is Thanksgiving, and I think it's worth the blogspace to reflect upon all that I am thankful for.

O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever
renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?


Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

As I walked home from the train station today, I nearly slipped on the cold concrete. I was immediately struck, as I often am, by the duality of our nature as human beings. We are simultaneously so strong and yet so terribly fragile. The same holds true for our thoughts and emotions - what we think and believe can make us either strong and powerful or weak and ineffectual. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am on a mission to see the world around in me in a more positive light and I truly believe that in doing so, I make myself a stronger and more capable person.

I am thankful for those who love me and for those whom I love. I have some amazing people in my life - and every so often I pinch myself thinking how lucky I am. Take my best friend in the whole world, Angela. We've known each other for 17 years and she has seen me through so many iterations of myself - and she's loved me and supported me no mater what. Even when I was rocking white eyeshadow and velvet blazers and thought that 11pm was way too late to be out for a party.

Then there's my amazing siblings. I'll be honest - we did not exactly get along in our youth. I used to refer to them as "the Spawn"... as in "the Spawn of Satan". I'm pretty sure the names they had for me are unprintable. But somehow, we have been able to get past all of that and move into a place where we are not only family but friends. I look to both of them so much in my life for advice and for a touchstone to keep me feeling normal and balanced.

I could spend hours listing out all of the other amazing people in my life - but the best part of the people I know is that they already know how I feel and they know how important they are to me. I never fail to be amazed by how the people in my life apparently possess some kind of Spidey Sense that goes off whenever I need them most.

I am thankful for every day that I awake and open my eyes. I am thankful for the breath in my lungs and the blood in my veins. I am thankful for my intellect and my intuition. I am thankful for the ability to feel emotion and for the ability to share emotions with others. I am thankful for my health - as I get older I realise how truly lucky I am.

More importantly, as 2010 draws to a close and finds me a year older, I find I am truly thankful for the fact that I am myself. I suppose some people are born with an immediate sense of themselves and how they fit into the world. I have never been one of those people. For as long as I can remember, I have always felt different - strange - other. A bit like someone standing outside a window looking in on the rest of the world. I spent so many years trying to understand why I was different and then trying to erase those differences so that I could "fit in". I spent so many years apologising for who I am, and who I am not. 

But a really happy side effect of the life choices I've made (moving to Seattle, moving to England) has been that I've been able to truly develop a relationship with myself. In a way, I've fallen in love - with myself. I know who I am, and I know who I am not and I am truly and completely okay with this. This is not to say that I don't want to change or improve, or that I don't have those moments of wishing I were better/faster/stronger/more/less etc - but on the whole, I wake up everyday and go to sleep every evening pretty damn happy to be me.

And so I am well and truly thankful for the journey that has gotten me here, and for everyone in my life who has played a part in the process. If it weren't for the people who beat me down, I wouldn't have learned how to get back up again, or that I possessed the strength inside me to do so. To every person who told me "No", I thank you for you are the ones who taught me that there is always a way to "Yes". And without the forces in my life who made me feel small, alone, inadequate, insufficient, insubstantial - what I learned from you is that the only way I can feel that way is if I allow someone else to dictate my life. I learned that the key to my own happiness lies only with myself, and that I should never feel as if things are beyond my control because they never truly are. Things may happen that I can't control - but I can control how I react (or don't react) to them.

I hope that everyone reading this has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day... or if you're not American, an amazing Thursday ;)

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Federman out.