11/23/2016
As you prepare for Thanksgiving with your family... Good stuff.
It’s Thanksgiving Eve! It’s the day that is MORE IMPORTANT THAN TOMORROW BECAUSE it’s the day we set our THANKSGIVING EXPECTATIONS!!!
IT’LL BE LIKE THIS!: Tomorrow will be peaceful and everyone will gaze lovingly at each other in cozy precious sweaters and chuckle at witty banter while the fire crackles and Uncle Joe decides against talking politics and Aunt Bertha remains sober and vertical and organic Cousin Sarah eats the damn stuffing and Brother Tom puts it all behind him and just shows up and Lisa and Karen bury the hatchet and baste the turkey together and your mother-in-law finally notices your excellent parenting and apologizes for being so short-sighted for so very long!!!
It will be JUST LIKE the commercials!!! This is the year!!!
ACTUALLY. It’ll be like this: Uncle Joe’s gonna talk about politics. Very loudly and first thing, likely. Aunt Bertha’s gonna wear her I'M WITH HER sweatshirt and drink like a saguaro cactus. Sarah’s gonna talk about how much red dye is in the cranberry sauce and pull out her tofurkey at dinner while wearing her MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat. Even if you pray hard, even if you stare at that front door all day long, Brother Tom might never show up. Lisa and Karen are gonna go at it like the Real Housewives. Your mother-in-law is gonna notice that your middle kid really needs a haircut and shouldn’t he know how to tie his own shoes by now, sweetheart?
Here’s the terrible news: The best predictor of how a family’s gonna act is how a family has always acted. It will never be like the commercials.
But here’s the good news: Our crazy families aren’t the problem. The commercials with the fake perfect families are the problem.
There are two ways to achieve holiday happiness, friends:
1. Make sure EVERYTHING GOES EXACTLY AS WE EXPECT IT TO. (With this approach we will be so full of woe ten times out of ten.)
OR
2. DRASTICALLY LOWER OUR EXPECTATIONS. (We might be pleasantly surprised!)
At speaking events, women often stand up and say this: G, I so badly want to be REAL with people. I want to stop acting and just be MYSELF in this world. But I feel I’ll never have that because I can’t even be real with my FAMILY. I don’t even recognize myself with them. If I can’t be ME with my family, what hope do I have to be authentic?
And I always say: Oh sweet fancy Moses precious girl, you’ve got it all backwards. NOBODY ON EARTH can be real with her FAMILY. When it comes to authenticity: Family is not the starting place – family is the FINAL FRONTIER. Practicing authenticity with family is like practicing cat grooming in a lion’s den. If you’d like to practice being real and vulnerable and YOURSELF – don’t start with your family, start with your mailman.
Because being real and relaxed has to do with going off script, with being a soul instead of a ROLE. Our families are where our roles are most deeply entrenched. Are you the “free spirited, flighty, irresponsible” one? Are you the “detail-oriented, boring, responsible” one? Are you the hippie? The clown? The scapegoat? We all have our roles, sisters. Families are but a stage, and we are all players. Families are living, breathing, ecosystems and it takes each to do his or her part to get the job done. Notice that no matter how much progress you make during the year, the second you walk into your home, you feel eight-years old? So does everybody else! We all do!
No problem! The show must go on!
So here’s what we do tomorrow: We stop trying to be the director of the family show and we just become an amused audience member. We jump on stage when it’s our line. We let everybody in the family play his or her role without being a critic. We let go of all that. We stop trying to change our people long enough to see them for who they are, and find some beauty in each of their characters. We remember that the reason there is so much food around on family holidays is so we don’t say too terribly much. We stop fixing. We stop persuading. We stop cajoling and judging and disapproving and lobbying. We stop hoping so hard and start accepting. We stop directing. We stop stop stop directing. We let it all be.
We cement our perspectacles firmly to our faces. We find some gratitude for these crazy people who are OUR PEOPLE, dammit. We remember that family is just The Ones Who Keep Showing Up. We are grateful to and for the ones who show up. They are a mess, but they are OUR MESS. And thank God because we are a mess too, but we are THEIR MESS.
And maybe this afternoon we stop at the store and pick up a box of our favorite hot tea. We keep our mug filled all day tomorrow and every time our hands feel the warmth of that mug, we remember: I am loved, I am loved, I am loved. I am whole and beloved and I will bring my worth into this day with me and carry it out of this day with me. My worth and belovedness are not given or taken, proven or disproved by a mother or father or an in-law or a friend. I’m not asking that question of today, because I already know the answer.
Tomorrow: We are confident because we are children of God and we are kind because everyone else in our family is, too.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, my extended family. You are my mess and I am so grateful to be yours,
G
