Thanksgiving is hard. No, check that, life is hard and great
and gritty and wonderful and sweaty and beautiful. The holidays, just bring all
of that…stuff to the surface.
Holidays are in-laws, out-laws, blood family, and dirty
houses and clean houses and cooking, and drinking, and politics, and
politeness, and love and frustration and gratitude. It can make us and it tries
to break us and everything in between us.
I love hate Thanksgiving. It’s like
an ugly beautiful. I want to eat all of it, all the southernness of gravy and mashed potatoes, but then the eating disorder
rears its head and I think I should have a paleo or a gluten free Thanksgiving,
or just the wine, I will settle for just the wine…and the olives from the
martinis, yes, yes that would be a good Thanksgiving.
For those of us who carry a mental
illness, an eating disorder, the holidays are prime time to give into the
crazy. All of the hard healing work starts to go to hell and I am tempted to jump
into the looney bin. Why? Because I am
hosting and I want it to be perfection because the opposite would be utter
humiliation. The mental illness speaks ugly words and tells me that my worth
lies in my ability to pull off the impossibly perfect Thanksgiving and….. to
not eat any of it.
The day before Thanksgiving I am
one big hot mess as I run into Target for wine. FOR WINE. Nothing else but
wine. And sugar and cajun seasoning. Then I add flowers and martini olives. I
am wearing clothes that are three sizes too big and in great need of a washing.
There is flour on them from making 23 individual apple tarts, my fingers have
dried remains from making mashed potatoes, I smell like butter and cinnamon and
vaguely like dirty dish water. My hair has the resemblance of a braid, but I
can’t be too sure. No makeup, which isn’t a totally new thing for me, I tend to
do without, but today, the no makeup adds to the hot mess quality, and house
shoes, stinky house shoes. I sail into Target, make a bee line for the wine aisle.
I grab the wine and opt for blue cheese olives for the martinis, some flowers,
and that other Turkey Day stuff and I make my way to the checkout line.
As I unload my groceries and pause to smile at
the cashier my appearance becomes painfully obvious. I start to cringe at my
nonbraid braid and my dried mashed potato fingers. My crazy is so painfully
obvious. My hair from the devil, my stinky clothes…… That inner voice starts to
hiss at me. “Thanksgiving is stupid.” It whispers evil in my ears. “Everyone else is so put together. All these
other women can cook 23 apple tarts without needing wine. You are weak.” Have
you ever had to pretend to be normal in public when you are fighting the crazy
voice? It takes energy to fight. It takes divine intervention.
Just then a young mom pulls her
cart in behind me. She has two young children with her. They have to both be
under the age of four. They are both crying. I look at her. Her eyes are closed
and she is concentrating on her breathing. She sighs and opens her eyes. She
looks at me. As I pay for my items (that
just reaffirm my state of insanity) I look straight at her and say “Stay
strong, momma.” And as I say this, I am empowered. I realize I can do this Pilgrim
celebration. I can host this Thanksgiving mess. I can. So can that momma.
Encouraging her made me stronger. Reaching out and embracing her, makes me
strong. It makes me realize I can and I will conquer that turkey and mashed
potatoes, and those stupid individual apple tarts. All 23 of them. I will keep
fighting the crazy and….I start to feel my peace come back to me.
Every women has crazy in some form or another.
In that moment of pushing aside my crazy to encourage another woman I realized
just what role women play in Thanksgiving. Women can create a space of
gratitude. Gratitude for this life that is hard and great and gritty and wonderful
and sweaty and beautiful. We are of the sacred, holy, embracing love. Women
have the grace, instinct, and energy to create small spaces of gratitude for
our families, friends, and perfect strangers. My crazy makes me sensitive to the
crazy in others. What a gift. I can be broken and give blessings and I am no
one special. If I can do it, so can other women. We can create the holy. We can
create the collaboration. We can and we will. We just need to see past our
perceived limits and look into each other’s eyes.
Thanksgiving is good. I smiled at her, she smiled at me. I
grabbed my wine and flowers, went home and made more apple tarts.
