Isn't that a funny idea, what you are "SUPPOSED" to do? As if everyone "supposes" you will do it, so you are locked in. (Who is "EVERYONE" anyway? Well, I'll tell you.)
Here's Thanksgiving, right here tomorrow. And what are we doing? We are going to stay home, just the two of us. Brandon had planned to go to Houston with his mom, but now he is going to stay here and have TG dinner with his friend/girlfriend's family. Okay with me.
We have been invited many places, the usual family ones and others, and with great love. But we have said no, thank you. I need some quiet time to get things organized (the home office is a wreck!) and to get Cmas decorations going. I have 2 parties at the house early in Dec. and I don't want to be decorating the night before. I plan to make steak for tomorrow's dinner, with homemade pumpernickel bread, steamed veggies and micheladas.
Like everyone, I imagine, my holiday expectations are based on what I grew up with, or at least what I liked about it. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas for all my years through college, we either went to my Gramma Beth's house, my Aunt Emily & Uncle Oliver's house, or everyone came to our house. And I do mean EVERYONE. We had a BIG family and there would be 30 or 40 people, always including some "strays," poor folks who didn't have family nearby to go to on the holiday.
So that's my tape. You gather with family, you cook, you HOST. That's where The Voices come in. They are like a sneaky Greek chorus whispering to me, "well, what about this and that!?"
Yesterday eve, as I headed out to the grocery, Ken suddenly suggested an alternate plan for our Thanksgiving...going somewhere we have been invited and taking along some friends who are new to town. I told him I really didn't want to, and besides which, I didn't have time to get the food lined up on such short notice...He agreed.
Then, as I drove, the place where my gall bladder used to be started twingeing (as it does when I am feeling angry, resentful, guilty) and the Voices started to whisper. So I stopped the car and called him up. Mostly to see if he had MEANT something different than what he said, when he said, "Okay, we'll stick with our original plan."
Because, what if he REALLY meant (but did not say) "Fine, if you don't want to be a good Southern woman and entertain these poor folks who just moved here from Yankee land and have nowhere else to go...no family to be with on Thanksgiving..."
The insane part is, he doesn't generally say anything except what he really does mean. It seems to be a guy thing. OR just a him thing. But those Voices...make me forget that.
He reassured me that he REALLY meant what he had said. I said okay. But the gall bladder place and the Voices talked to me all evening. I breathed into that place, and talked to everyone inside me, and wrote about it.
Eating stifles those uncomfortable feelings. I was not entirely successful in staying away from that fix last night. Better than other times though. Now I'm listening to Libby Roderick which always helps me to feel like ME.
"How could anyone ever tell you You were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you're connected to my soul?"
Take that, Voices! :)
