Giving Thanks in 2021

Greetings Readers!

Depending on where you’re reading my story, here in America Thursday (November 25, 2021) is Thanksgiving. While the truth behind the holiday has become a controversy, most Americans like to use it as a day to just give thanks. I would like to believe giving thanks has become the modern tradition rather than the history behind the holiday (which I am not going to go into). How one celebrates this day also varies, but for me, it has rarely been a holiday I enjoyed throughout my adult life.

When I ventured out into adulthood on my own, I want to continue the tradition that had been instilled in me throughout my childhood. I wanted to gather with family and friends over a plethora amount of food and gorge until my stomach felt like erupting. However, as the years of life continued stack and I spent most of those years alone on the holiday, the more apathetic I grew towards thanksgiving. With no family or friends, my dream of engaging in the annual feast became meaningless.

This evolved into abhorrence for the holiday season. I was alone. Sure, I had people who knew and cared for me, but I didn’t have “friends.” I’ve spent the majority of my life independent and single (as in: not in a romantic relationship). Every attempt to build relationship (platonic or otherwise) has always met with adversity (i.e. unreciprocated effort to building a relationship). Furthermore, my depression and self-loathing also enabled me to take unanswered efforts to build relationships as a sign of me not being worthy of a person’s time. I had convinced myself I was a loner until one day, I changed.

After starting down the path of my renewed life, my perspective on what is important has also evolved. Additionally, the great 2020 pandemic, which forced most of the world into isolation, made me rethink how I was living my life. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I wanted what I had always wanted: people I can connect with and who want to connect with me. I wanted friends, I wanted sisterhood (which is something I had desired all my life, just wasn’t the right person to find sisterhood). I had vowed to myself that I was going to work on building relationships once the pandemic had ended (yeah, I know…it’s still not over, but more and more people are coming out of their homes and returning back to a life pre-pandemic).

As America enters the 2021 holiday season with the front runner: Thanksgiving, I actually don’t feel depressed, or alone, as I had been feeling in the past. For the first time in years, I am genuinely excited for the end of the year’s festivities. Additionally, I can be grateful for something other than the usual (my job, my health, etc.) because I have so much to be grateful for.

I am grateful for the courage I found to overcome my depression and live the remaining years as the person I authentically am. I know there are still so many people who live in a situation that prohibits them to be who they really are. I hope my courage in being myself serves as a guiding light for them in finding their true selves.

I am grateful for finding self love. I often remind people how depressed I was prior to finding myself. My actions didn’t show it and no one was aware how much I had long to erase my own existence on the planet. Now that I am finally at a point where I began to love myself, I am definitely much happier.

I am grateful for the new people I have met. When you have spent decades in solitude, meeting new people can trigger anxiety easily, but I have met a lot of caring and supportive individuals. I have started to make more close relationships, something I didn’t have before. I am grateful for having these people who want to know what is happening in my life and are eager to hear my stories and updates. It is a different lifestyle for me, but they have been patient and understanding.

I am grateful for my group of sisters who have accepted me into their hearts. As pre-mentioned, I had longed for sisterhood all my life (like from elementary school days). Unfortunately, I was never granted this one wish I prayed for daily. Thanks to the pandemic, I not only found a new hobby, but also I found my group of sisters. Together we learn how to become better skaters, but more importantly, we are there to support each other beyond the hobby itself. Whether it’s how to perform a move on our skates or how annoying people in our day to day life are, we continue to be the ear that the others need. It is a relationship only other women can understand and it is this sisterhood that was the missing piece to my heart and soul. Having them in my life has giving me a sense of belonging in a world where I couldn’t find a home.

Yes, Thanksgiving 2021 is the first Thanksgiving where I am truly feeling grateful for life; for living (and I don’t mean health-wise). It’s funny how making one important life change transforms one into a completely different person, but it’s a change I will never regret.