Per usual I was late this year ... BUT not as late as the previous years, so we're making progress already! Last minute I decided to prepare everything for my Mom that she wasn't able to get done because she was working back to back to back to back schedules at work. I think it's awesome that my Mom is the big head honcho where she works but it requires an obscene amount of her life, especially during the holidays where she is on blackout and isn't allowed to take days off and her company requires that she work until midnight on the eve of eves, and eves of holidays, and then turn around and be there at 4:00am the following mornings. So I felt bad this year and prepped all her food and recipes. I got in my car by 9:00am to go get Natalie. 2 hours late. DEAD FUCKING CAR BATTERY. Apparently when I loaded my car up before I went to go to bed (aka watch a movie because I actually didn't sleep for one second that night) I left the light on above the console. Awww MAN! Are you effing kidding me?! Unfucking believable! :::*pouty face*::: Mom to the rescue (which is completely out of character and uncommon for my Mom). She hands me her keys and says, just replace the gas so I can drive to work in the morning. OMG, am I actually going to be THANKFUL for my MOM this year?! Keys in hand, food and supplies transferred, on the road. I picked up Natalie, and after making a few stops (Walgreens and QFC for the alcohol my Mom called to see if I could pick up) We were at my Dad's house 11:45am. Record Time. I may or may not have sped, but the fact that there was absolutely NO TRAFFIC may have also contributed. And the best part? We were the first to arrive! Everything else basically went off without a hitch, not exactly on schedule, but whatever, family was together, we food was eventually cooked and everyone was set at the table. We started a new Thanks Giving tradition, too. Normally we would go around the table and each give thanks for what we were thankful for that year, but this year was different. This is the first Thanksgiving since my grandpa passed away on December 1st last year. Last year he wasn't present at the table because hew as in the hospital, but we were all kind of in an emotional cocoon last year, everything was awkward without grandpa who was the always the Turkey Carver and giver of thanks and Grace sayer. This year, without grandpa, we started new traditions in his memory and it was beautiful and sad and I cried at the table. Mom carved the Turkey this year (because my DAD doesn't know how to carve a turkey and pulled out the power tools, so Mom took over). My sister Rashel was home this year after a very long year of her taking off to find herself. Dad & Mom weren't wrought with the pain of dealing with Rashel's absence and grandpa's last few days. My Sister Crystal is pregnant with my nephew, Jonah, and she is so beautiful at 8.5 months pregnant (and always) and her and her husband are so happy. My other sister, Shannon wasn't going through (and as everything panned out, never went through) a divorce. We weren't in the emotional turmoil of being at the hospital every single day for a month to be with grandpa and see him so ill. I wasn't just discharged from the hospital, the same hospital and subsequently the exact same room as my grandpa. Grandma wasn't crazy, or withdrawn from the grief. We were OK. We made it through the year. We survived. We had an abundance of love and reasons to be thankful this year. We do every year. I have an amazing family, and not just at holidays. I gave thanks for that this year. I gave thanks that I know we are not "normal" in the way that my siblings talk to each other every day and my sisters are my best friends. I gave thanks that we say I Love You when we see each other on holidays as well as Tuesdays or because it's a Saturday. I gave thanks that I can send my Dad a text at 4am on Monday morning because I just felt like telling him I was thinking about him and he'll text me back and say he loves me and thanks for making his day. I gave thanks that I can open my email and see a random message from my grandma that she loves me and "That Is All". I gave thanks for Scarlett and Sandy for their patience, unconditional love and belief in me. And I gave thanks that for this day, I was able to be present in my life and not worry about the food I was giving thanks for. I was able to engage in conversation and comprehend when people talked to me. I gave thanks that I wasn't bundled up in blankets, looking gaunt and dead, just trying to make it through sitting at the table because I didn't have the strength to hold myself up and the chair was so painful to sit on because my bones protruded and there was nothing to protect them. I gave thanks that my mind wasn't cluttered with my eating disorder, although it was still present it wasn't loud, and it wasn't in charge. Another day with my eating disorder so present is what I strive for. It's my proof of my recovery. It's the bounty of all the hard work and the painful days. It's something tangible that I can say OK, so this is what it's like. Now I know. It's not just like working your ass off doing the the fucking impossible without a clue of what you're actually working towards ... you can't miss what you don't know, and I feel like sometimes I'm just working blindly, not knowing what exactly the payoff really is going to be, other than this "word" recovery ... which means "not dying" "healthy" "not sick" but you don't know what the FEELS like, you just know that you don't want to die, that you don't want "this" anymore, that you're tired of fighting, that "something" has to change. Recovery. You just want recovery. So you do the work. You cry the tears and you scream because it's hard. Some days it's impossible. And you fight, anyway. But you don't know what it's going to be like. You're taking a giant fucking leap of fate, feet first without knowing where you're going to end up ... I suppose it's like a blind person trying to imagine color. How do you do that? Where would your brain go to know what the color RED is if you've never seen it before? I decided to blog about this because for one day, for one meal, I was free. Whether or not I decided to eat or try food, it didn't matter. I was thinking about my family, present, engaged in conversation, laughing, crying, being alive. This is what it's going to be like to be recover(ed), and while I may be a long long ways from recovery, I am recovering.
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