Stuffed

I cooked an entire vegetarian Thanksgiving today! It rained all day, and I was cozy inside over steaming pots and creatively maximizing a poorly equipped kitchen. I got the date wrong, but the food right. Yet as nice as it was, with the mess delayed till tomorrow, a gifted plant, and good company, I’m feeling… I was going to say lonely, but that’s not it- I feel old. I feel overwhelmed by all that I don’t know and weighted down by what I do. I feel capable- I can imagine a 30-something-th Thanksgiving in which I feel trapped, and my capability leads to resentment. Makes me shiver. Makes me feel tired. Tonight, I have to consciously shift this image, push it aside. Maybe I’ll be more thankful come Thursday’s REAL T-day.

My most remembered and maybe most beloved holidays have been the most complex ones: Christmases pervasive with death, or delayed flights, or potlucks in Ecuador, or winter trains to the middle of the U.S., or freezing Midwest heartfull, or New Years in a cantina in the Republica Dominicana. I hope my quirk-factor outweighs the rest. And that this premature-Thanksgiving in the Balkans is a premonition of sorts. Of spontaneity trumping superiority. Of my own optimism. Let it be, amen. I hope I find someone who can remind me of my best self by their love. And also that I grow enough to be able to remind myself- more consistently anyways.