Happy Thanksgiving! Musings, Wishing Wells, and Philosophizing.

Let me start by saying, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s my favorite holiday. The food is great, the reasons to celebrate and come together are great, and I love the overall decor and theme of this season. It’s a time for unity and hearty meals. It is a time to count our blessings and give thanks for what we forget to be thankful for throughout the rest of the year.

We may not all do it, but that’s okay. Sometimes we just need a good excuse to look outside ourselves and see how loved we are. And this year... I feel great. Fantastic even. Writing has given me a new joy to look forward to, if only out of self-gratification. I’ve connected a bit more with my family. And work is finally slowing down!

And I’m also a little sad since none of my family or friends are around to celebrate this auspicious day with me, but the spin is, they spend a lot of my life with me. And today is a day like any other. So come tomorrow or even a week from now, I’ll celebrate with them very loudly indeed as though it were an out-of-season holiday.

But don’t get me wrong. Positivity doesn’t come natural to me. I have to force it out. To struggle and strive and live for tomorrow. I know a few people I interact with who have struggled these past few days with some serious mental concerns. Concerns that come from external things. The world bearing down on them, and nary the strength to hold it up. This journey of living can be hard, in every sense of the word. We have to recognize that it is, and fight harder. For our sake, and for everyone’s.

To them, I wish the best. To the rest of you, if I have only so many wishes to give, I give you my middling best. Haha.

Ever since my dad passed away last year, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking of my own. With 2022 nearly concluding, I’m starting to wonder where my life is going. I’m still young. Only 26. And already I’ve set out and done the things I most wanted to do in life. Write my own stories and publish them for real. But now I’m thinking that all I want to do is relax. Live everyday for myself, and for those I love dearly.

My goals are met. I’ve etched my name in the sand and on stone. Even if they were small, I did it. I have no ambition for worldly acclaim. But maybe that’s okay. We don’t all have to live with some grand fate to hold us to our part. Maybe it’s okay to live life normally. How many billions of stories get written every century of lives that helped the world go round, if only because they existed? We help, just by living. Maybe not someone you know, but someone being affected by your decisions. The foods you eat, the clothes you wear, and the roof you sleep under. And sometimes even more directly when you go out of your way to help them. In the actions we take, the words we say, and the attention we give.

All things to be thankful for. Our lives, and this circle of frail sustainability. All struggling, toiling, and living for tomorrow on this blue earth.

”Help me learn how to live.”