Very Very Thankful

Five years ago, I spent Thanksgiving weeping. At our big annual family feast, two cousins announced they were pregnant. While I was so genuinely happy for them, it was a painful reminder how barren my own marriage was, not for any medical reasons, but because it was a sham.

I felt like a closeted gay man at family celebrations. My husband and I played the role of the happily married couple, but as soon as the taxi door slammed, the silent tension resumed.

I come from a large, happy family and always assumed I’d have the same, but it was clear from the moment our son was born that we were very different parents. Like crushing the glass at a Jewish wedding, this beautiful thing, the birth of our child, shattered our happy dyad. Though I spent a decade trying to glue back the shards, nothing ever worked, not the therapy, romantic vacations, medication or a Barnes and Noble size shelf of self help books. I even tried becoming a blonde. That’s how much I wanted to fix it.

The day after our New York Thanksgiving, I went to Vermont to be with my nuclear family. My brother turned our childhood home into a community farm. Every Friday they welcome the sabbath with a song circle and organic feast. It was so warm, so creative, so welcoming that I wept. I wanted more of this in my life, more time with my immediate family, more time with community and kindness as opposed to the rush rush pace of New York and the stony silence of my loveless marriage. I wept feeling stuck, that there was no way to integrate this Vermont haven in my New York City marriage and career. My sister stroked my hair and held my hand. My brothers kept singing and gave me the space to have my public meltdown without jumping in to fix it. I let the grief completely wash over me. I was swallowed in a Hoover Dam of pent up tears.

This Thanksgiving I give thanks that I now cry tears of laughter.

I have so much fun surrounded by my family, it is truly ridiculous. My father, brothers, sister and I have dinner together three nights a week. We have a three mile radius between our farm, inn, museum, retreat center, homes and cemetery where our mother and grandmother are included in our picnics, sing alongs and impromptu games. Collectively we share one hundred bedrooms with an open door to constantly welcome friends, guests and the community. We recently bought 22 plots in the cemetery to keep the party going in the afterlife.

I have miles to go before I sleep, to quote a fellow poetic Vermonter, but I am happy knowing I am on the right road. I am so completely grateful to live authentically and fully. I have flung open the door on my closet. I am deeply thankful to feel aligned and free.

I am thankful to the pain of that wake up call Thanksgiving five years ago. That bottom was my trampoline to bounce back and go higher than I ever imagined. Now I am soaring. I am thankful to my family, my friends and my courage and oh, am I thankful for blue sky.