Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving.  It will be the first time we're with extended family since the news "broke."

One of the things I want to set as a precedent is making other people feel comfortable around us.  I'm not totally sure how to accomplish this.  Right now, the guy looks fine.  No wheelchair.  Sometimes a cane.  He can talk, breathe - at first glance, he looks healthy.  I suppose I don't want him (or me, I guess) to be treated different.  But things are different.  So how does that look from the outside?

My one and only Thanksgiving duty is to make the green bean hotdish and my mom said she'd do it this holiday.  I felt happy it was one less thing to worry about today; the gesture was sweet.  But I also felt a little weird since I want life to move along normally. Or at least as normal as possible.

This wasn't meant to be a diatribe on the new normal.  I was just thinking I'm a little nervous about hanging out with family.  It's not them - they're kind, supportive and frankly, once the initial "how you doing" chatter is done, Thanksgiving will proceed in the usual way:  drinks, games, food.

Today I'm going to focus on positive.  I've been trying to do that the past few days but it's amazing what the physical component of sadness is.  I don't even realize it until this oppressive elephant is standing on my chest.  Yesterday, I went about my day and in the middle of the day I just stopped functioning.  It was weird. I had to sit down and just... sit.   I work in retail.  We never sit.  It was a busy day yesterday.  But the buzz in the store couldn't keep me going.

Ok.  I keep rambling off my "what I"m thankful for" topic.  I have to go - 6:43 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning.  My sister is picking me up and we're walking at the Mall of America in the Walk for Hunger walkathon!  We've been doing this for the last 5 or 6 years.