Giving of Thanks
Clean linens adorn a table that sits on a mirrored wooden floor. A floor mirrored by it's own lacquer. A consummate conservatively dressed woman in her early 50's comes to the door to hug her daughter. She speaks with a heavy Middle Easternish foreign accent. She is warm to those who enter her house and her greetings are given with merit somewhat on credit. As if her "Hello, you are very welcome." is on loan. It is a good thing to be reserved when welcoming your daughter's boyfriend into your house. It is a good thing to not just give welcome to any man bringing home your crowned jewel.
I was thankful for so many things on Thanksgiving. I was thankful I made it another year without any serious repercussions from my wasted last 4 years. I was thankful that my life had taken shape and direction on a better path. I thought of these thanks and knew that I was just being thankful for her. I was being thankful for the woman that wouldn't let me be alone on my Birthday or on Thanksgiving. I fielded questions about marriage and the future. I talked with her brother's doctor friends and while at first was a bit embarrassed to be wearing what I look at now as shabby clothes, I found myself comfortable with who I was. When I enter her house, I really do find myself very calm. I have a hard time wondering if it's me or if it's them or if it's the love I feel for her. I'm sure it's a combination of all of those things.
I watched television with her Father, whom at first I was told that I would fear as Argonauts feared the wrath of Poseidon, but in fact I genuinely enjoy his company and find him to be both pleasant and sincere. It's hard when you don't have much of a family, to walk into someone else's home and have a spine or a leg to stand on. The last thing you want to do when you are around a good family is explain that you don't come from one. And it's not as though I don't come from good stock, but the next Thanksgiving dinner that I'll be having will be with the family I create and not with the one I ever had. The last things you want to talk about are nuthouses, police, step fathers, bankruptcy, etc... But, I did talk about some of those things. I talked about them because her, and my love for her allows me to not really be afraid of anything. She knows all those things. She knows them and she still brings me to her parents lovely home for Thanksgiving dinner. She's proud of me, and if a woman like her is proud of me, than I am proud of me.
I haven't written much about Jas and I because things can be difficult sometimes and you lose initial fire, sight, and reason for some things. You get depressed or you get frustrated to the point where you may seem like you don't care. But, if you love someone there is a cure for your emotional or outgoing ambivalence. The cure or ability to get that spark is to take them out of your mind and imagine your life without them. All you have to do is realize what you have for 5 seconds and things such as not putting the clothes away or not going to 7-11 seem to fade away. I'm not saying certain things that you do or don't do aren't important; in fact, the little things you do are the grease that keep the wheels turning. But, without that inherent love, there would be no wheels, much less a need for grease. So while the grinding of everyday life can be annoying just remember that the sound of the grind reminds you that you are alive.
So I would like to give thanks to the most wonderful woman I know. I would like to thank her for loving me and giving me a chance to be something I always wanted to be; a good man.
