…Thanks…
I’ve never really had anything resembling a ‘traditional’ Thanksgiving experience…my parents and I would just eat plates of food in front of the TV for twenty minutes and then break off and do our own things…but this year is the first year I’ve spent it completely alone. In a way, it has been kind of a nice day. In a way, it’s just a mirror held up to my life.
Being alone is just one of those things that is about my life. Between the socially awkward and toxic parents who are no longer together and the disintegration of all things familial on both sides of the tree and the utter ridiculousness that has happened over the years that has caused most who’ve known my nuclear unit as it were to not want anything to do with my parents…lets just say being their child didn’t make me a popular person.
Part of that is my fault too and I know it. I’ve never been able to make and maintain strong ties with anyone…insert inherited social issues here…let alone get anyone to really see me for who I am. People have always chosen to see certain aspects of me, or assumed things about me, and well…when you don’t match their expectations…
There are a few people though that see more than just what’s on the inside. Now that I’m 30 it seems I’m able to just be me and certain people appreciate that. People are starting to see that I am a pretty accepting and understanding person, and all I want in life is to also be accepted and understood.
I’m never going to be that person I’ve pretended to be to make other people happy. None of those incantations of a being are who I am. But they are all facets of me. Just as is every person who’s been in my life. They’ve all taught me something in their own way.
I will never be perfect…we are born imperfect, afterall. It’s true. Each of us is born with what amounts to be an aneurysm somewhere in our bodies. Something to do with cord blood and clotting…I forget the specifics. At any point in time, every last soul on this Earth could sneeze and burst a blood vessel, or lay our heads down for a nap and never awake.
I like this example for a few reasons. I used it before mostly as a comeback to the religious nutjobs who like to tell me I can be saved or changed, that being gay is an abomination. It’s a bit more of a pushback to the whole “God makes everything perfect’ diatribe. Well, beyond the obvious shove in the face that if they take the Bible literally and ‘God’ creates everyone in his image, then ‘God’ is obviously black, Jewish, Muslim, homosexual, transgendered, physically and mentally disabled, a woman and a sinner.
Nothing and no one is ever perfect. Everything in life has flaws. It’s being able to see and accept those flaws that make people and things ‘perfect’ to someone.
I don’t believe in perfection. I believe in acknowledging imperfection. I believe in being myself, scars and all. I believe that there are people in this world who can and will love and accept me for who I am, where I’ve come from, and who I am going to become. I know this because I treat others this way. Well, I try really hard to anyway.
Which is why it’s hard to know I’ve had to write off my mother. I know I can’t respond to any of her manipulative, guilt-tripping missives. She made her choices in life, and losing the connection with me is one of many consequences she will need to face.
In all honesty, I’ve never really felt like I’ve had a ‘family’…we were always just people living together, and I just happened to share genetic material with the both of them. There are few happy memories…and I’m not even sure the ones I have are real or if over the years I convinced myself they were happy so that I wouldn’t feel so bad about my childhood and teenage years.
I’m just thankful I made it to 30. I’m alive. I’ve risen from the ashes of a lifetime of failures and I’m here. I’m ready to try, try again.
One of these chances, it’s going to work. One of these years, I’ll be sharing happy news of engagements, nuptuals, maybe even pregnancies…one of these years I won’t feel like life has passed me by.
One of these years I will have a family of my own…even if they are only friends…and I will have a ‘proper’ Thanksgiving with something to celebrate. One of these years I won’t be thankful on my own.
Naked 