Happy Thanksgiving

My lack of motivation is evidenced by the delay of this post.

Winter Night in the Mountains, Harald Oskar Sohlberg

Thanksgiving is primetime for food-related content and I’m here to acknowledge not only my lack of participation but also my lack of caring. I believe honesty tends to be more interesting and less icky than adhering to standards of content creation and, honestly, the week of Thanksgiving I found myself ordering take out almost everyday.

This year was the second time my partner and I had Thanksgiving on our own and I had aspirations to go overboard with a menu that would feed this (blissfully) childless couple. There would be a whole turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole (for the first time in probably 20 years!), stuffing, gravy, spinach & artichoke dip, homemade rolls, glazed carrots, and of course pie. The fridge would burst at the seams with Thanksgiving leftovers. The freezer to be filled with a fresh onslaught of turkey carcass, a future investment for bone broth promising a months-long soup dividend just on the horizon.

But Monday, Tuesday, then Wednesday came and went and the fridge was a wasteland littered with takeout food containers. Despite my food fantasies, I couldn’t muster the desire to cook a damn thing or find the appetite for anything resembling a Thanksgiving meal. Instead, on the blessed day, we ordered Chinese food and later comforted ourselves with movie theater popcorn and nachos as we cried ourselves into oblivion during Hamnet.

To continue the spirit of honesty, I admit I’m caught between disappointment and detachment. The past version of myself who held grand, perhaps gluttonous aspirations mourns my failure in bringing them to life. My present self orbits an abyss of numbness, unable to connect with this grief but still (and always) tethered to feelings of guilt. But sometimes, even when you love something, the desire to engage with it doesn’t always align with the motivation it takes to follow through. Over the years familial camaraderie and participation in Thanksgiving has dwindled. Family tensions and estrangement, geographic and emotional distance, and the death of loved ones make tectonic shifts in relationship dynamics, permeating the holiday air. This plus the disappointment, guilt, and numbness is a recipe for malaise that we know is more commonly felt this time of year. Content created for us would like to conceal this truth through illusions of normalcy, that of which you can purchase through the link in bio.

Exactly a week later my norm remains that I’m unmotivated to cook, to even get out of bed. I begrudgingly take showers and haven’t been to the gym consistently in over a month. I think about the animals who are winding down, sleeping more, and conserving their energy as it gets colder and darker. As I pull the covers over my head I imagine a huge brown bear stretching and yawning in her cave, rolling over, farting, and going back to sleep. I acknowledge my lack of motivation and I want to offer it an antidote in the form of things I’m grateful for:

My lovely, angelic partner.

My health.

That I get to live in New York City, even though she’s dirty and irritating as hell sometimes.

For friends who are like family.

That Jessie Buckley pursued her dream and became an actor.

For people who work at the movie theater during holidays.

That there are more books in the world than we could read in a lifetime.

My Toto washlet, I don’t know how I lived so long without it.

Women in general.

For those seemingly few people, who against all odds, try to do what’s right in a world bent towards disintegration and corruption.

For you, who continue to read the words I submit in this noisy land of the Internet.