Okay, I did the good portion of the holiday earlier, now comes the shitty part. The reason why I don't usually like Thanksgiving all that much is that for the most part it is the loneliest day of the year for me.
I know, why would anyone pick Thanksgiving for that? The thing is, I miss having all of my family under one roof. As a kid, all of my aunts and uncles, their kids and my grandparents would all be under one roof celebrating the holiday. Sure, the celebrating consisted of just sitting around and getting fat, or in some cases fatter, but it was everyone, under one roof, laughing and carrying on. It was the eagerness of wondering if this would be the year where I wouldn't have to sit at the kid's table, if I had grown up enough to sit with the adults. It was going outside and throwing a football around waiting for dinner to be ready, wondering if we could somehow get control of my grandparent's TV to watch the games that were on, suffering through the fact my grandmother would have the thermostat set too high again and we would be sweating just by being in the house.
But times change, people grow up and move on. Many of the grand kids I shared the kid's table with are now married with children of their own, my grandparent's have since passed away and work has kept me from going home spending time with my family far more often than I would like to count. So Thanksgiving in that regard has become a thankless task, a ritual in loneliness, getting up and going to work and acting like the day is no different than any other day, coming home to an empty apartment and wondering what food like substance will pass for the holiday meal this year. Making a big meal for one person seems so much like a waste, but sitting around eating Cher Boyardee just comes across as pathetic. There is no happy medium in that equation, just suck, no matter which way you turn.
For the most part this year has been really good, at times I would say far better than I deserve, but there are still moments like this, where I am sitting here eating a non holiday, holiday meal, alone in my apartment, wishing like hell I could sit at that kid's table again.
No comments:
Post a Comment