Last Thanksgiving, I was thankful for my yellow latex dishwashing gloves. I was thankful for other things too — being unemployed, my awesome family — and while some things have changed (yay for paychecks), others haven’t (hey mom). The biggest thing that hasn’t changed, will never change, is the importance of stopping to take a moment and feel gratitude — especially for the things that seem like challenges.
This year I’m thankful for:
Being so stressed out about grad school apps that I feel like I’m going to vomit blood. This is what it feels like to really want something. Hey, self, remember this feeling. Hold onto it even when the stress passes.
Neglecting the blog that I love. Sorry to wantonly abandon you guys — I adore you, I truly do — but every day that I beat myself up for not writing here is another day that I’ve spent writing fiction instead. The original idea behind keeping this blog was to help me find my voice, figure out from muscle memory how to make words do stuff even when I have nothing left to say. And now, miracle!, I’m actually doing it when it counts.
Being single and having no plans to change that. Every once in a while I think about how nice it was to wake up to someone, how I’ll eventually want that again. But waking up is such a small portion of the day. I think of the way I go to bed now, late, after a long night of writing, crashing into the mattress like I’m falling out of an airplane. On my best nights of writing, my skin visibly burns after a few hours — red flush that starts on my stomach that creeps over my body and gives off heat like an engine. I would burn a hole through someone else. I cannot make room to hold someone else inside of me, not if I want to keep working this way, maybe not ever.
Sometimes the best part of my day is eating fat-free yogurt. I like to stare contemplatively at the spoon and pretend I’m in one of those vapid yogurt commercials. I am thankful, sometimes, to be a woman.
Loathing my job most days. It’s going to be so easy to leave in August.
Being an unforgivable, unconscionable oaf. I come from the “not wisely but too well” school of love. Unlike Othello, I’ve never straight-up smothered a dude with a pillow; but I do have a rare gift for saying the bad thing at the worse time, making the unthinkable blunder. Yet somehow I’ve managed to surround myself with family and friends who love me anyway. If I were less of a lowly wretch, I probably wouldn’t need such amazing friends, but I am, and I have them, and I am deeply blessed.
Happy Thanksgiving, kittens. Enjoy the family and friend time, and definitely enjoy the pie. And, dudes, when you do the dishes, seriously, yellow latex dish gloves. Your hands will thank you.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
grad school apps. i was there with law-school apps four years ago right now, pouring my heart out into essays and gathering all the psychic goodness i could. and the only writing i had to put together for that was a couple of essays about why i want to be a tax lawyer. i can’t IMAGINE having to give so freely of my creativity (and we all know that’s giving so freely of your essence, your soul if you will) to chase my dreams.
that being said, i’ve read you – you’re going to kill it if your portfolio pieces are even 10% as authentic, natural and well-constructed in their purpose as the stuff you share with us here.
happy thanksgiving. try to breathe a little. :)
I love this list. And loooooove that you recognize the how amazing it is to want something, even in times of stress. Happy turkey day!
I loved the idea for your post so much that I sat down and wrote my own list of shitty stuff I am infinitely thankful for. I looked at my list and realized it could very possibly be yours a year or two from now, so here it is!
1. I am so thankful that my graduate program kicks my ass every single day (even weekends). I’m constantly forced to examine my priorities in school and what I want to put in/get out of this.
2. I am thankful that my advisor yells at me and thinks I don’t work hard enough no matter how much I do. Someone has to push me to grow and produce better work, faster. Let me tell you, that person isn’t going to be my friends or family.
3. Being forced (by distance) to spend most of my time without my boyfriend. My week is all about personal development and work. If I lived with him I wouldn’t have that.
4. Becoming constantly more aware of my personality flaws. It’s the only way to be a better therapist/researcher/student/girlfriend/friend/daughter.
Good Luck with apps and I wish you my kind of problems in the coming few years!
I’m going to be putting up a post on thankfullness tomorrow, but your yogurt commercial totally reminded me of something:
I have many actor friends, & one of them is the lovely & talented Nance, who went in to audition for a ‘bite & smile’ (food) commercial one day. Unfortunately, that food was yogurt.
Nance smiled into the camera, took a big scoop of yogurt, smiled… and dribbled yogurt out of the corners of her mouth all over her face and shirt.
You know what the worst part is? She can’t possibly be the only one to have ever done that. Somewhere, in some commercial agency basement, is a rejection reel of hundreds of women dribbling yogurt on themselves.
So, yanno, maybe it’s a good thing we don’t all live in yogurt commercials.
Happy Thanksgiving!