Thankful - For So Many Reasons

This Thanksgiving proved to be an unusual holiday.

I usually try to reflect on the true meaning of Thanksgiving and make a mental list of what out-of-the-ordinary things or circumstances I'm particularly thankful for, especially those that have developed over the past year. However, these last few days have proven the value of small blessings, definitely the ones I'd normally take for granted.

Wednesday: I stayed late at work on Wednesday night to finish a long project.  Knowing I'd be able to start again on Monday without coming back to it after two months of writing felt like a relief. At around 6:45, I stamped a "Draft One" proofing mark on a completed file and put it into circulation for approvals. I thought about being thankful to be employed and happy to have my family waiting for me at home. My husband had been home all day, so he had a chance to clean house and everything was prepared for a happy holiday.

I'd been meaning to get a haircut and pedicure for about a month now, but just hadn't found the free time to do so. My favorite salon is open until 7:30, so I supposed I'd have just enough time to get in and get finished. I did plan to enjoy that pedicure, though, as my feet really hurt lately, at eight months pregnant. I had just sat down and put my feet in hot water when my husband texted me. A stream of frantic messages and voicemail followed: we needed a plumber, urgently.

What I can only guess to be raw sewage had filled our drains earlier that evening. My husband was upset after having just cleaned house, besides the additional expense of hiring a plumber. I hurried through the salon services, worrying all the while, and rushed home. When I walked in, my husband was on the phone with a plumber we'd used before; it wasn't yet 8 o'clock, but he still had to charge holiday hours, an extra $100 minimum fee to come that night or on Thanksgiving. My husband asked me what I wanted to do. For at least $100 extra, I figured we could wait a day. We scheduled for Friday, shut all the bathroom doors and went out to dinner.

Every time we opened a faucet, a drain in another part of the house began to gurgle. Fortunately, we weren't having guests until Saturday, so it wasn't a huge problem to go without for a day, but it was certainly inconvenint and unsanitary. It's easy to forget how much we all depend on indoor plumbing for showers, the use of our dishwasher and washing machine. I was suddenly thankful for clean water and its normal use within the house. There are, afterall, so many people in the world, in this country, even I'm sure, in this state, that go without in their homes, every day.

Thursday: A friend visiting in New York texted us to talk about Black Friday shopping. The import taxes for his country are so high that name brand items are rarely brought to be sold as regular merchandise. All he wanted was to get to a local Home Depot. However, Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade had blocked the way and getting around the parade route involved a 22 mile cab fare. In the end, it wasn't really worth it for him to go and then pay the return fare. I suddenly felt thankful to drive to my local retailers and shop at my leisure, with a full selection of reasonably priced items. Being able to get in the car and go really is something we take for granted every day.

Friday: Still thankful for indoor plumbing. It was an easy fix and I felt relieved to have a variety of cleaning products available with which to clean everything, again.

Saturday: My sister came to visit from Texas. We were having a great time until the doorbell rang around 6 that evening. Our neighbor apologetically explained that she had crossed into our driveway and backed into my sister's parked car. The night ended with my sister on the phone with her State Farm agent. She thought they might need a rental to make it back on Sunday, as her husband had to return before his three o'clock shift as a physician's assistant at a new job. The entire back door and rear bumper need replaced, but they arrived without incident and the neighbor's insurance should cover the damage. Insurance, job flexibility and being near home all seem like sudden points to be thankful for.

There are actually so many fortunate circumstances with which we live every day that are easy to get used to just having all the time, besides the bigger picture of life, health and employment. It was still just a strange, almost Murphy's Law-type Thanksgiving, but still a very happy time. Maybe it's not only a time to thankful, but more a time to be mindful, particularly as the year draws to a close.

The Unspoken

I'm a riddle in nine syllables.
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
- Sylvia Plath

 

I was watching my son put together a puzzle tonight and it suddenly seems to me that we should stay exactly like this, forever. That he should be four and I should be his mom and we should remain, suspended in time, as we are today, just the three of us. I remember my parents discussing similar wishes when I was a child but I could not understand then their urgency.

There will soon be four of us and this dynamic, the one in which we can sit and watch him do a puzzle without worrying about another boy in another room, will soon be lost forever. This will be our last Thanksgiving, just the three of us. And Thanksgiving is, of course, the year's last really calm holiday before the others begin. It'll be Christmas so soon after and then the New Year and then the baby - the lead up to forever. I am afraid of not being a good mother to two of them and sometimes I think I only have energy and attention for one. Most parents probably feel this way at one time or another, I realize, but it doesn't seem like an easy or assured concept to understand until it happens. In other words, I can't really know until I try, but the time for trying is fast approaching.

I'm excited to meet my next child but anxious about his care and keeping, in addition to how exactly he's getting out here. That we're all born the same way is truly a curious point; no one really talks about it and there's a hormone, an actual chemical process designed by biology, to help us forget it. Time and trust aren't at all the same thing.

The Judgment of Strangers

People's reactions to pregnancy in general are somewhat shocking. I understood it more when I was six months pregnant at 22. Someone walked up to me in a grocery store checkout line and explained that my baby was a parasite that I should get rid of as soon as possible to be able to move on with my life. That seemed horrible and judgment-filled at the time, but I knew it was based on age and was from a total stranger. However, it's five years later, I'm visibly older and have a great career. Now I hear "You must feel miserable," "Feelin' fat?" "This is your last one, right?" "You could die, you know," and "Oh, it's another a boy? What a shame you didn't get a little girl," etc. from colleagues. Seriously? I'm pretty happy with the idea of having a healthy child at all. My first baby passed away and my now four-year-old son was born very early follwed by a long stay in the NICU; I'm happy to consider better odds this time. People just take it for granted that everyone gets pregnant easily with a healthy baby. I couldn't be happier at being pregnant, but I do not understand the negative feelings people bring up. I get "misery loves company," - style empathy, but what if I'm not miserable?  I think more than the number of children one has, having that at all seems controversial.

Fall back, spring forward

This is the time change that makes sense to me. Even then, fall back, spring forward feels strange and I wonder how many people will be early tomorrow, late in the spring.
Moving the clock makes me wonder how much of our lives is really goverened by time and how many days it would take to become aware of the change if I didn't have a schedule, something to bind me to what the clock dictates.
It's difficult to imagine a life without binding activities. Going through the motions takes up so much of our time. I'm not always certain how much of it really matters. Will I worry when I'm 80 that my windows weren't washed and my child's cookies weren't homemade? I don't know exactly how we determine what's important; all of it seems to add up to something, but maybe not always the right thing.
 I sometimes think about my impending maternity leave as that time, a pause, a furlow into babyland where there are no meetings or term papers. That time, however, isn't reality, not in the long term sense anyway, and will pass all too quickly. I'll still have a laptop and a Blackberry and calls. The baby too will have a schedule. For six or eight weeks, I'll be doing something out of the ordinary and that I may not do again.
I remember when my son was a baby and I lost track of what day it was, what time, dawn or dusk. It really felt that that all of the days blended into one long stretch of time. The first three months seemed to last forever and I was sure we wouldn't ever get him to eight months, much less a first birthday. He's four now. Time may fall back, but just as surely, it springs forward.