It is November on the Gregorian calendar, the apple orchard season winding down, the turkey carcasses piling up in the aftermath of the third Thursday of the month. It’s still sunny in California, most days passing by without so much as a proper chill, golden rays shooting down to shine through golden leaves just now starting to turn yellow. I try to spend as much time out of doors as I can. On many of these beautiful autumn days, I go for long runs, sweating in the sunshine. I read a book in the park down the street when I can. On Sundays I walk to church, swinging my coat and picking up my feet to crunch along through dropped acorns and drying twigs. It is November in California, and November is bright and beautiful. My soul has a November too, but my soul’s November does not match the weather. It’s more along the lines of the soul-state described in Moby Dick; dark and drizzly, making me want to step out and start knocking people’s hats off. In this season of gratitude, having just celebrated Thanksgiving, I am struggling; struggling to be thankful when I’m actually feeling rather ungrateful. I’ve begun to complain a lot more in the last few weeks. I’ve started harping off about my distaste for my job, gotten on my self-righteous high horse regarding a myriad of social issues, and walked around feeling as if I am simultaneously way too good for everything and also, as I receive rejection letter after rejection letter from positions I apply to, not good enough for anything. I am both self-loathing and entitled, and it’s a strange combination to be. There have been many days this November when I felt so blue that I couldn’t properly function. It felt like sickness, like exhaustion, like hunger and thirst and anger and tears all rolled up into one. I was bored all the time. I was lonely a lot. I was prideful most days, thinking about how I was too good for my job or my town or whatever I fixated on that day. I was sad a lot, feeling like I had tried hard, and for a long time. As I failed again and again, I grew hard, grew angry, grew self-righteous as a way to keep myself from being crushed beneath the weight of hopes deferred and dreams lost, plans not fulfilled and relationships missed. I grew guilty on occasion, when I let my emotions be loud enough to feel what my soul knew to be true – that I was in the wrong on a lot of fronts, and I was not being nearly so kind as I should. I’ve been ungrateful this month. Ungrateful in the way that I imagine the rotten, spoiled child of storybooks and made-for-TV movies to be. I have been given so much in this life. I have, honestly, been given everything. And still my greed, my desire for more, my search for some ultimate meaning (that I want to come with a decent salary), is getting the best of me. I realized this ingratitude in particular depth on Thanksgiving. Gathering with family in the Bay Area, I walked in feeling I was different than them. In part this is because I am, as we are all different from each other, and in part because I want to feel special in order to not feel so scared, and so set myself apart in my mind. As we milled around, eating and eating and eating some more, I had good conversations with cousins, aunts, and uncles. They sought to see and understand me and it was, honestly, overwhelming. I didn’t know how to present myself, as my own self-concept is exceedingly muddy. On top of this, the recognition of their care and love for me, which I have long struggled to feel and accept, made me feel unbalanced, as though our relationships were now even more lopsided than they are circumstantially, my being seven years younger than my next closest cousin. I felt unsure of myself, unsure of most things, and very sure that I was wrongfully ungrateful. My experience this Thanksgiving scared me and made me humble. It made me sorry for a dark, unnamable cloud sitting in my chest and behind my eyes. A cloud of pride and shame, of falsehoods, of goals that I have failed to meet. Coming out of the holiday, I have kept checking in on my emotions, expecting to feel some immense gratitude well up, but it hasn't come. I’ve tried to force it, but that hasn’t worked either. My now-more-latent ungratefulness feels wrong. November and December are not the time for bitterness and greed. Thanksgiving didn’t cure me, like some part of me expected it to. My life isn’t a Hallmark movie; I don’t even get a script. Thanksgiving didn’t make me grateful, but it did help me take a step in the right direction. Thanksgiving made me sorry, forced me to acknowledge my wrongs, to recognize and confront my self-obsession and desire. It forced me to look at myself and how I present to others. Thanksgiving made me feel bad for not being grateful, and that’s a good thing. I am sorry now. After sorrow comes apology, and after apology comes forgiveness. Forgiveness incurs gratefulness, so many a tale has shown. I have found a way to sorrow, and through it I think I will find a way to gratitude. For this strange journey, I have decided that I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving, a few days late.
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Rebecca Rose“There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.” Archives
March 2017
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