On Giving Thanks

Admittedly, it’s a little late for a Thanksgiving post. But honestly, every day should be a day for being thankful, so you should read this anyway.

Like many other people my age who went to college far away from home, I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with my family since I was seventeen years old. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s five years now. Thanksgiving kind of takes on a different meaning when you don’t spend it with your family. Thanksgiving at home is framed by the people you love the most, probably set in the home you grew up in (or a close friend or relative’s), and sprinkled with the foods that are familiar to your particular family traditions. You give thanks for those things primarily, and probably also for your health, happiness, and all the other good things in your life. When I say Thanksgiving away from your family takes on a different meaning, I don’t mean that you cease to be thankful for the things mentioned above. I guess I mean that you come to appreciate the things you weren’t expecting.

For my first Thanksgiving in Virginia, I was invited to the home of a friend named Kim, a high school classmate whose parents had moved to the DC area and who was also going to school in Virginia. We were joined by Makee, our other classmate in the area, who was going to school in DC. The three of us were friends before—at our tiny school, everyone knew everyone else, and the three of us had recently been in Art History class together—but we hadn’t been particularly close. Despite this, spending that weekend with Makee, Kim, and Kim’s family felt like breathing after being underwater for almost three months. Maybe that sounds a little dramatic, but I had a really difficult time adjusting to life on the East Coast, and to be reunited with people who really understood me and where I was coming from made me feel both euphoric and at ease. With them I didn’t need to explain the things I said or hold myself back from using words I would be required to define. We could reminisce about all the idiosyncrasies of home. And Kim’s family was so welcoming. I hadn’t met them before that weekend, but they took me into their home, fed me, and made me laugh. That Thanksgiving, I was thankful for the hospitality of a caring family that wasn’t my own, in a warm home (not just a house—college taught me the difference) full of much-loved things gathered over years of traveling. I was thankful for old friends and the bond forged by a common past.

In the years since then, I’ve stopped needing familiarity like I need oxygen. I eventually settled in to life in Virginia, and continued to go to Kim’s for Thanksgiving for most of college. Those times were always full of love and laughs. It seems kind of foolish now, but at first I was surprised to realize that relationships continued to evolve after high school. I guess somehow I thought that things would freeze in place the way they were before we graduated. I’m thankful today for the way my friendship with Kim and Makee changed and deepened because of those Virginia Thanksgivings. Now that we’re scattered to the winds, it’s nice to look back on those years and be thankful that they could give me that breath of fresh air when I needed it most.  

 Hope you two are having awesome adventures right now!