The Hauntings of Thanksgiving

Holidays are the hardest time of year.

I’ve said this in the past and I’ve heard so many people with depression, anxiety etcetera say the same thing. It’s a uniquely painful time I think for agoraphobics.

It’s as if the spirit of the holidays has fled me. Perhaps I left it behind somewhere. There was a time when I could grab a hold of it, even if just for a short time, eventually I got caught up in the wave. Moving through thanksgiving with a smile and even a sparkle. It's not as if I ever had any responsiblilites. A proud gen-xer, never married with no children left me free of all pressure related to throwing a good party.

But long before the fear got the better of me I disliked the run-up leading to holidays. The crowded stores, the cacophony of overlapping conversations and the always mad rush to “get ready”. In our nuclear home a lost shoe or cake pan could lead to thirty minutes of drama. Weeks of procrastination meant tortured last hours before finally piling into the car. My parents and siblings seemed unaffected by all the self-wrought stress, and even today face events with the same last minute sprint. To their credit, they seem to come out relatively unscathed.


I quit leaving the home for holidays about ten years ago. Initially I thought it would be a temporary thing, surely I would join the family the next year for Thanksgiving and it seemed nearly everyone at one point or another had had to skip a holiday for work or traveling to a spouses for that special day. So it seemed to me it should be forgiven if I skip that year, and I assume it generally was.

I always insisted that Mom go about the holiday as if I didn’t live with her. She and Papa went without me when he was still with us. Then her new husband accompanied her and all was well for me. Well, that's what I tell myself. Now she’s not able to travel home alone and at this point in her life I should be the woman preparing and planning and making it all wonderful for a room full of children scuffling about peeking around corners in anticipation. Instead I keep the spirit holed up and stuffed down, brought out just long enough for a quick prayer.

There were of course holidays that I enjoyed in that other life. That life and time when the spirit propped me up and kept me going. Even when the occasion was a huge get together, I usually thrived once things got going. Although the run up to an occasion often left me crippled with anxiety and fear internally, once we drove up to a loved one’s home the spirit seemed to step in. My fear was crumpled up, stuffed into a tin box and put away to enjoy after the party.

Our family is pretty big and I can remember the table. That moment of shock I always had when I would look down the length of the table and over to the other table and wonder at all these happy people who genuinely loved me and I loved them, each and every one. The camaraderie. The prayer of thanks. The endless procession of food being passed around until the portions being shoveled onto the plate got smaller and smaller as the evidence of our bounty took up more and more space on my dish. The spirit of thanksgiving taking its place at the table with us.

I still love them one and all. Old and young and big and small. With their neurotic tendencies and all their idiosyncrasies, they were beautiful and intelligent, and they were mine. Mine to talk with, laugh with, share with and reminisce with. Mine to defend, amuse and listen to. Mine.


The women could compete on Top Chef with pride and the men could shuffle furniture about with the ease, if not finesse, of any fancy moving company. And yes, they could veg out on football too. When my uncle got that first big screen TV I think he may have crossed into godhood there for a while. The smells were magnificent, the deserts were classics and the smiles were thrown about like confetti. Who could ever ever argue that this was not what the holiday was all about?

But they didn’t know what it took for me to get to this point. Or perhaps, I suppose, they did. Odds are, at least some of them did and do. Because when I look back as an adult I’m able to imagine it from their eyes.

The women who started preparing weeks, even months ahead with phone calls, recipes and schedules. Always efficient in the kitchen with such grace and dexterity. Turning one and two-butted kitchens into dance floors with seemingly choreographed hips, weaving in and around ovens, burners, cutting boards and china cabinets. How often I wonder, did they wish they could hire a caterer or get a baby sitter? Did they ever resent dressing up, cooking like slaves then washing dishes? Eventually doling out desserts and finally keeping the children happy and entertained while the men watched football, a movie, played a game, napped or chatted? Did they face the holiday under two conflicting minds, one of bliss and one of silent endurance? If so, they never showed it.

If they had known that I was of two minds myself, would we have shared? Could they have known that every moment was a wonder shock for me.

To see such unity, such love, such selflessness.

Could they tell that I was insecure and afraid of embarrassing myself. Had they guessed that my chatter was a ruse to convince them all I was happy and contented, even successful? How many of them were suffering to the same extent of their own demons forever whispering they were fooling no one? I was sure that every eye saw past the composure to my secret self, slumped in a corner and hiding from scrutiny?

Can it really be that all of this actually shares a couch in my mind with all my favorite memories. That place where I hold all the precious mementos of family and love and warmth. These doubts and fears and anxieties were once blanketed by that love and unity. When did the negative become the dominate in my mind? How could they win over the day? The spirit kept the demons at bay until I was home alone. Here I could pick up my depression once more and hold it close without fear of discovery. How could home be a refuge then? How can that, this be an escape?

I have Mom, but we were all meant for more.

I miss them all so much. My family. My strength. There’s an occasional email and “hi” sent with a pic. But I’ve managed to keep them all away with my walls. Building the ramparts with such zeal and enthusiasm that Thanksgiving has become a plate wrapped in cellophane or delivered down the hall.

I’m still thankful for all those wonderful things, all those bigger than life memories. I’m still grateful for my family, home and freedom. I appreciate the spirit of the holidays more and more even as it leave me behind to my fear.

Siphonaptera’s Siphonaptera incommodious

Well, it’s been an intensely stressful and incredibly lonely two days. Who do you call when it tries you right down to your toes? Who’s the 911 for that “biggest fear” panic in your life? When you’ve worked tirelessly to save it all up for your best friend, and that one person goes to the hospital hours away and you don’t accompany them? Well that’s what I’m here to tell you. Guilt is now your new best friend. Guilt is your closest companion. Guilt is actually a closer companion then the one you stand praying over on the front porch as they drive off in an old jeep aimed at a scalpel and a tiny machine intended to shock the most tender heart you’ve ever encountered.


That’s when you start manning the phones. That’s when all the rules about where you draw the lines to the keep the divide between you and the rest of the world good and wide begin to narrow. That’s when pretty words of reassurance, and long winded speeches about propping each other up and clichés of the American way of life hit you right between the eyes, and sink like a lead bullet to the middle of your chest. Your center of gravity, your middle, core, gut, heart. The place where you feel those emotions that you carefully keep off your face and out of your voice. This is where proverbs are no longer cliché’s, but words of divine wisdom meant to give us hope and encouragement.


This is the time when “people like me” curl up with a creamy hot cup of self-loathing and a good long book of circular reasoning.


Answering the telephone and claiming a complete sense of confidence while handing out updates and scheduling changes is an absolute must. Previously established rules on phone answering with codes for acceptable people getting through are thrown out a proverbial window, we can always fall apart later about unintended intrusions, what if it‘s news?!


One calmly passes out prayer requests like Halloween candy. Out of your mouth comes the cheery, “say a prayer for…they have a need”. While the phrase inside your head is something akin to, ‘if you ever had any compassion in your life, you’ll spend the next eight hours confessing every sin, offering every prayer and trading in on good deeds for the sake that my loved one might or might not need divine intervention’.


Due to your “delicate” reputation, everyone will concentrate all of their efforts on diminishing your worry. God knows, the last thing you need is someone accusing you of drama at a time like this.
They will systematically make you feel like Captain Kirk in the drama department. A single, “I’m worried.” is an invitation for the eye-rolling “Don’t be silly.”. the aloof silence, or my personal favorite, “Oh my God! You’re absolutely right! Disaster is just out of reach and by this time tomorrow we’ll be planning a funeral!”. With this last one I can only imagine weather there’s a motive here, or just thoughtlessness.


So I’ve learned, and I imagine most worry warts by a relatively young age, have learned that it’s best to share the fear with just a single person. Therein lies the rub. When it’s that single person who you’re worried about who do you express your worry to? You certainly don’t want to worry that person anymore than they’re already worried. You try to concentrate those conversations on encouragement without making them feel like their fear is unfounded. Cause it is founded.


So, for now, you are the positive one, because you already fell apart and now you are that “someone else“ again. That someone who has eyes and ears and a mouth for making silly sounds that people agree to call language. It’s that gift of gab that allows for that opposable thumb we’re so proud of you know. You balance, “I love you’s.” with, “Everything’s going to be just fine.” The typically polite “good-bye” becomes taboo, foreign, a word no longer part of your vocabulary. It is replaced with “drive safely” and “I’ll see you soon” . Quick pecks on the cheek and “hands on the shoulders/elbows down” hugs become long, prayerful wraps of two armed embraces and the wagging tongue holds still while language devolves to the eyes. Perhaps someday science will find that an animal’s glance conveys vastly superior intelligence when compared to the rigid confinement of the syllable in conveying the true meaning behind our primitive words. The eyes express your final thoughts in private though, where no one can see the depths that are hidden and the welling that longs to brim over. After the coast is clear , they’ll express themselves again when you get that phone call, the one you’ve spent so much time anticipating and dreading. Here human language excels. Here it pushes against its restraints and says all the things someday you’ll wish you’d said before that call, before the appointment, before you ever thought to fear.


Then, if you have any sense at all, you write about it! Because in my experience, if there’s one thing guilty sidekicks with drama complexes are good at, it’s dumping their feelings all over the internet and wondering why they can’t relate to anyone in the real world.


Now as a person who feels a spiritual connection to the ostrich, I sit in no judgment of anyone else’s response to a worry wart’s worry. Especially if said worry wart tends to read something into absolutely every detail of absolutely every conversation. This disorder, and I’m certain they’ve developed a pill for it, so it must be a real disorder, is probably called something like Siphonaptera’s Siphonaptera incommodious, which literally translates: flea‘s flea disorder. Did you know that fleas have fleas? Well they do. I saw it on discovery (insert smiley emoticon here). Anyway, details themselves have details. I think people with this disorder often grow up to be successful political advisors. These are certainly the people we see picking apart speeches and attributing ridiculous motives to every word, phrase, action or inaction for any politician who isn’t on the disordered persons side of the isle. But I digress, as conversationally detail disoriented people tend to do. Hey! That’s good. Let’s call it Conversationally Detailed Disorientation Disorder, or CDDD for short.


Wait, I’ve just forgotten the point I was making. Oh yeah! It sucks when your best friend has surgery on their heart. It sucks even more if you can’t be there for them. And it sucks to the point of being an off-color joke, if there’s no one to share your fear with and no on to hold your hand because you’ve managed to chase everyone else away. And to boot, it’s a whole new level of suckiness when your only outlet is the telephone and you can’t hear a damn thing. BTW: to anyone who thinks I laughed or sounded sympathetic at the wrong moment in the last two days and now finds me insensitive or a really fast talker. That’s because I either didn’t hear you right, my mind filled in the missing words with the wrong thing or I couldn’t understand anything you said. In which case I wasn’t rambling or hogging the conversation, I was just talking really fast so you couldn’t get a word in edgewise that I was destined to miss-hear anyway.


And, if all this isn’t crazy enough for ya, just wait until it sinks in that when I sat down here twenty minutes ago I was gonna write a blog detailing everything from the moment we heard she was going in for surgery, until the moment we heard she was on her way home. But like most people with, the now widely excepted, disorder that is CDDD, I made it all about myself. :-*