You Are Writing This Story

Today is a day for giving thanks.

I can feel it in the air. I can feel the world around me laying out the sparkly linens and setting the table for the feast.

The holidays are a magical time, and I savor them every year, not the least of which because I get the opportunity to re-write them in the way I see fit.

For those of us who come from families on the more contentious side of the spectrum, the holidays can be fraught with emotional mine fields. The echoes of past voices rear their ugly heads, and old relational blackmails surge like angry tsunamis, threatening to swallow all the joy and cheer in their wake. 

It's hard, walking this path, learning to be a healthy adult without getting overtaken by the past.

But the thing about life is that the beauty tends to prevail, no matter what the obstacles. The sun bursts forth with rebellious, unabashed glory and forces the timid daisies out of the soil. We each of us still rise to tell another tale. We open our eyes to the sun, put one foot in front of the other, and keep writing this story.

There are countless of social discourses floating around in the air around us. These messages tell us who to be, who to bind ourselves to, how to comb our hair, and how to live our lives. Our culture tries ever so hard to tell us how these holidays are meant to be, and what we owe to the world around us. "The Holidays" become a juggernaut of suffocating social obligation.

But I want to offer that in it all, we always have a choice. We are writing these stories. We belong to ourselves, and we can choose how to set the table.

We can adorn our space with the found treasures that bring us joy. We can offer seats at the table of our lives to those who build us up and make us believe in ourselves again. And most of all, we can dig in to a feast of goodness and mercy that gives us the hope to carry on.

Today, dear fly girls, I want you to know that you are okay. That you are doing the good work. And that you can author this story in the way you see fit. 

Curate this life with things of beauty. And let yourself soar.

Happy Thanksgiving!