Holidays.

Thanksgiving.

A time to look at your life and give thanks to the things that mean the most to you.

My thanksgiving hasn’t always quite been that way. I’ve managed to make it work, I’ve managed to believe that it is a holiday where we give our love, our thanks, our meaning. I’ve managed to sit through dinners, laughing & loving. Thanking and giving.

But I still seem to find myself in comfort while I sit alone, picking up extra hours, avoiding the all-consuming memory of just what this holiday meant to me a few years ago. I continue to put myself in that dark place where I remember the little scraps of memories that I have… The sense of loneliness and solidity that I’d felt, the worry that no person would ever cease to believe me. The sadness that I feel when I look at myself and say “Happy Thanksgiving” to the very people that hadn’t a clue where I was that evening.

I look at my life today and I am grateful. Genuinely. Hell, I’d look at my life then and still find gratitude. But today feels different, today I see that I am in a place where I should feel content, I should be willing to say thank you. Yet, I am continuing to look at my future with fear, with shrilling disbelief that I do not get to have gratitude. I wait for something bad to happen each time this holiday takes it’s turn, and I continue to feel okay.

Crazy ain’t it? I am waiting for my life to unravel. Constantly in a spiral of waiting for the worst “next” to come. But that’s just evidence of what happened. What my addiction did. What misery I’d let in, what disaster others helped create. It’s crazy yes, but it’s not untrue.

Each year I look at this holiday and remind myself that this is not my life. I remind myself that everything I’ve worked towards is some surreal reality of what healing makes you believe.

Here’s the thing though… It is. I guess. This year it took until nearly the end of the holiday to truly recall all of my doubts of why I should be grateful. This year was the longest timeframe I’d gone without thinking about it. Sure, I was sassy, I pushed away love (again), I hid from my family and ran from caring arms of those that want to bring me in. But I did it without the belief that I didn’t deserve it. I did it while healing. I’ve allowed myself to make changes, to feel love, to give love, and to be in love. Sure, I’m not there indefinitely. But hell if I don’t try.

Progress may not look the same to others as it does to yourself. My progress is in the form of not self-destructing everything around me. My progress is in that I went to work, I focused on my joys and I found myself willing to love. Maybe next year it will progress even further.

I have a lot more to be thankful of than I give myself credit for.

This year I am grateful for my progress.