I'm Not Feeling Grateful

Turkey, With a Side of Grief

Not feeling it. Just not feeling it. When we go around the table and share what we are grateful for, I will exercise my right to remain silent.

Gratitude? Harumpf.

My inner church lady (she’s a highly strung gal who plays the moral police in my inner world) recoils at my admission. But even this past year is a tough one for her to speak up and recite gratitude memes.

Grateful for breast cancer? The amputation of my breasts? A kid who doesn’t want contact with me? Financial terror as I get back on my feet from a year of nearly no work? A friend who died just a few days ago-her body ravaged by a rare and aggressive cancer-are you fucking kidding me?! Gratitude?

Do I express joy over the daily pill that will help keep cancer away… at the cost of constant aches and depression side effects?

How about the beautiful women I know who will spend the holidays walking into an infusion ward, scarves wrapped on around their bald heads, offering smiles to the nurses…but are terrified inside. Am I grateful for THAT?!

What about the shit show in this country? The mass shooting of the day? Political clowns that care for nothing outside their own quest for money and power.

Grateful that the “American dream” for young adults now is to maybe find an old school bus that they can turn into home because a stick-built home is far too expensive and will never be within reach. (Bonus points: If they get enough followers on their Instagram page, they may be able to hobble together an income too!)

I’m dreading the holidays. I get teary walking by the stupid baking goods aisle in Walmart because it reminds me of happier times of baking for my family.

I mean really? A bag of flour? Tears? Really?!

Do I express thankfulness for the betrayal and subsequent divorce that shattered my family and the illusion of growing old together?

Nah. Fuck that shit.

I know, I know, church lady. This is really hard for you to see this side of me. It is the suffering part of me that is oh so weary of hard shit happening at every turn.

Nah, church lady, stuff it. I don’t want your chastisements and admonishments to put on an “attitude of gratitude.” Quit accusing me of a pity party, these events and pressures are real, and I’ve barely had time to catch my breath between the throat punches.

But I sense that even you have grown quiet lately.

Waving pompoms when your world has burned to the ground gets tiresome. Even the firefighters packed up their gear and left. There’s nothing left to burn. Just a few wisps of smoke rising from where my house once was.

I know you’re exhausted, church lady.

Now, I know this is the part of this essay where I look up from my miserable navel and see a rainbow butterfly fluttering about. It alights on my nose and I have my Jimmy Stewart moment like the end of It’s a Wonderful Life. Pastel unicorns perform Pas de deux above my head. Good god, man! It’s a miracle!

I report on the silver lining in these difficulties. The joy of not wearing a bra. Thrill that my kids are healthy (even the incommunicado one). I can breathe. I am cancer free. At least the kids were adults when the bitter truth of my marriage was made clear.

But, uh, yeah. Not going there.

Perhaps in a backhanded sort of way, I am grateful that I can sit with these issues and well, just be.

I’m not running from it. I want to keep a flicker of hope that this next year, will bring a happier turn of events. God knows any flowers that may bloom have been well watered by the copious tears of 2022.

But I can’t even say I am cautiously optimistic, even though the church lady is really, reaaaaaalllllly aching for me to say something to that effect.

Nah. She’s going to have to hold her peace. This will be easier for her to do after a food coma later today.

This year, I’m not going to be thankful. Or be ungrateful.

I know deep in my core, this is all okay. There is peace, acceptance, and a sustaining love to carry me through the darkness.

It’s okay to just be. And that’s what I’m going to do: just be.

But first, I must put on my eatin’ pants.

PS This isn’t coming from the church lady but the essence of my very being-I am grateful for you, dear reader. For reading my words and for your kind responses that help me feel connected and a little less alone. I wish for you a very Happy Thanksgiving and a new year of prosperity and joy, however that may look for you.

Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to contribute to my wishlist. (Right now it’s a one year subscription to Canva.)