The Other Side of Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving Monday…the day many gather as families to eat turkey…or maybe lasagna, or a roast.

And tomorrow, if it is as it is other years, the phone at our office will ring.

• Someone will have made 3 or 4 different pies, been too exhausted to enjoy the gathering, and enormously hurt because no one said “thank-you” or noticed the fussing over the variety of pies to please everyone
• Another will have witnessed relatives over-imbibing…and witnessing a fight that gets ugly…reminiscent of many previous alcohol induced fights from years previous
• Another will have worked all day preparing a big meal, or maybe raking the yard and preparing it for winter…and wishing and hoping and resenting the fact that the request for help was ignored by someone who took a nap or watched the game instead.
• Another will be having a “Hungry Man” TV turkey dinner with only TV for company, and the silence when so many others are gathered around family tables will be deafening.

And ironically, Thanksgiving Day, will be a day where the bitterness and hurt and loneliness and pain of the moment will have it be a day where gratitude is least likely to be felt.

A day where it feels like one is taken for granted, set up for hurt, witnesses family conflict in a way that the possibility of

• Is family worth it?
• Are relationships worth it?
• Being a hermit seems sooo appealing at this moment.

Wish it were that easy. Being that humans are hardwired for relationship…our brains long for connection with others…we continue to long for those very relationships that also hurt us…bend us, sometimes, almost to the breaking point…frustrate us…break one’s heart.

And so…tomorrow, or next week, or maybe next month or next year, with a deep breath, with a wall rising that threatens to rise so high it breaks connection, a person will reach out and try again…hoping that this time, there will be love and acceptance and nurture.

Tomorrow, we will get some calls from people feeling like those walls are so high they can’t be climbed without some help. We will begin work with couples to find ways of making it safe for those walls to come down. We will meet with individuals to figure out how to relate to those who drink too much. We will meet with people who give of themselves until they are empty, and depressed. We will help people work towards healing in themselves, in their relationships—either their marriage, with their family or with friends.

And for some…this will change what the Christmas gathering will look like…they will risk talking about the pain…and so the next time of a holiday, it will look and feel different.

Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it… It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.