So, Thanksgiving day. A time when we here in The US where we are supposed to be celebrating that first winter when the Indians took pity on the stupid people from Europe that got here too late in the season to get enough food to last the winter, and would have died.
Lately though, it is all about eating, and shopping, and whatever. There is the whole moral outrage of what the Europeans did to the Indians, that were already on the continent. You know. Stupid stuff.
But, my story today begins in 1995. That tumultuous year when my entire life fell apart. All culminating with Wild Heart, the mother of my children, and wife of nearly ten years, who had been cheating on me all fall, finally had enough, and left. On The Day. Sucked.
Years passed, and I never really recovered from the bad feelings that come over me during the month of November. It's like marching down a narrow hall towards an open door, where you see flames. Even after I remarried to the wonderful Hobbit, and my life should not include that yearly march down the hall, somehow, I always found myself there.
As we all know, 10 years after saying "I DO" She too left. And though that anniversary is in April, so, it doesn't contribute to the things that occur during the Thanksgiving season, She contributes to this march as of this past year when she remarried again, and did it on the day after Thanksgiving, and thought it would be okay to invite me to the wedding.
It's like dipping your hand into a bucket of alcohol, that you have just had ground glass rubbed into. The pain is deep, and never really stops burning. It's not Hobbit's fault. I am sure that she had no thought about what I was going through when she invited me to the wedding.
It did cause me to take a big leap in my personal life, and that was the day I purchased the non-refundable hotel reservations for the 5th of December where I traveled to Carencro, and watch Prinzzess dance for the first time. I decided that day that she invited me, that I was no longer going to wallow, or, spend Thanksgiving in such a way that made me doubt whether I was a good person, or deserved to live or to even matter anymore.
So, that brings me today. I am going to be going out for Thanksgiving to eat, real, traditional Thanksgiving food, and look at the sky, and the sun, and the world around me.
First is was Wild Heart, back in 1995, and then, it was Hobbit in 2011, but as I look back on this Thanksgiving day, 2012, I realize that the old lee, the guy that was terribly shy, and terribly closed off, has discarded some of that, and is moving on with whatever life is handing out.
I am still haunted by the hallway. I dreamed about it this morning. But, today. I am stopped in the door. I am standing here, looking at the flames, but I refused to allow them to draw me in.
I am not a bad person, and not even the two most important people, the two most important relationships in my life, will influence that anymore. I allowed those bad feelings to rob me of years of my life.
And who knows, if the Mayan Apocolypse doesn't occur on the 21st of December, or God doesn't rapture the church, and we somehow don't blow ourselves into oblivion, 2013 might be the coolest year ever.
Let's hang out and watch.
Shalom
Namaste, My friends
See You On The Other Side.
Deo non Fortuna
P.S. I am thankful for what I have. I turn my back, at least for today, and the "Coulda's and the Woulda's and the Shoulda's"