THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving AKA A Time to Count Blessings.

It is Thanksgiving weekend. Definitely an appropriate time to count my blessing.

My husband wrote to me last week, after he had had one too many beers, stating that he felt his life had been sliced in half. I wrote back pointing out that he had his house filled with belongings, a good pension to look forward to, and a raft of friends collected over half a century living within a stone’s throw while I had none of these, that I didn’t know where I would be living in ten years, where any possible grandchildren might come and visit me, or how I was going to finance my future, that perhaps his cup was only half-full but that mine was empty.

That was how I felt at the time. But of course it’s not true.

So I will count my blessings again. Write them down. Remind myself of what I have.

And then, of course, stop feeling so angry, so sad, so sorry for myself, and start the job of living again.

I complain often that I am of no fixed address, have such a paltry pension as to be inconsequential and hence no idea how I will support myself when I get old, but what about what I do have? What are my top ten blessings?

I have, in no particular order, my sons, other assorted bits of family, a few friends and acquaintances, a job, some money, some stuff, my health, a Canadian passport, and the world as my oyster…

I lied. There was some order. My sons top the list for sure.

I have three fantastic sons.

Ben, my oldest, is out of town this weekend visiting his girlfriend, Steph, who lives in the States, but he lives a short 40 minute drive from where I now do and I have visited him most weekends this fall. He is in some ways my best friend and sounding board. I remember when he was a newborn and I was amazed and awed by his mere existence. It shocked me that he was male because, looking down at him sleeping in his bassinette, I would otherwise have seriously considered that he might be a clone. He has, unfortunately, a few qualities that I would not have chosen to pass on, a certain hesitancy and a definite lack of hubris (unlike the other two for example, who are just like their father, certain that they are god’s gift to mankind. They know in their bones that they are wonderful. I took up with Andre in the beginning mostly because of that very quality, the self-confidence which oozed out of his pores and radiated in all directions like a golden halo. I hoped that some of it might rub off on me. I didn’t. I am who I was. But the younger two kids have his gusto, poise, and aplomb, and hence negotiate their way through life with an effortlessness that leaves both Ben and I just the tiniest bit envious.) Ben, too, of course, is wonderful. And his similarity to me is what in many ways creates the easiness and comfort we have between us that is such a solid part of my first blessing. The other two, Fred and Alexander, are both so much like Andre that it constantly astounds me. Alexander came to stay this weekend, brought his girlfriend, their bikes, and a bag of apples. (Is he his father's clone?)The three of us, he and I and Emilie, went biking round town the first day and then off over to the nearest provincial park to explore it by bike the next. He also brought with him the news that he is working hard at school (he’s currently in 3rd year Engineering) and that he has just started a part-time job working as a landscaper which a) he loves and b) pays well and c) teaches him real life skills like how to use a rock saw and a backhoe and d) will morph into a summer job for next year. He is happy and healthy and thriving. Fred flew in from out west where he is living temporarily while looking for work to visit his girlfriend over her reading week. I knew that his flight arrived in Ottawa at 5:30 pm and so hadn’t really expected to see him that evening but Laura picked him up at the airport and they came straight to my place. He too is happy and healthy (though currently unemployed and perhaps a little stressed by this.) (I am, at the moment, so lost living here in random town Ontario that I feel an inadequate role model and so put no pressure on my kids to come and see me. To have two of them choosing to make the effort to do so, to break bread with me this Thanksgiving weekend, was beyond wonderful.) But, details aside, these three twenty-something young men, tall dark and handsome, kind, caring, and considerate, healthy, educated, and interesting are my far and above my first blessing. They give my life meaning. (As children so often do.) If I didn’t have kids, I sometimes say, life would be easier, I’d quit my job in a heartbeat, head out to the South Pacific to look for a boat, sail until I was broke and then jump off the back. But, please, don’t think that that in any way reflects on my joy in having them in my life, my thankfulness that they exist, my constant wonder that they have turned out so well… Yes, no doubt, my kids are my first blessing.

(Hmmm… if I don’t stop the wordiness this may turn out to be too long a post!)

Second, of course, though now there is no longer any order to my list of blessings, is my other random bits of family: my ex-husband who writes to me on and off, who procured a shed and put it in his back yard and lets me store my stuff there so that I don’t have to pay for storage, and who is good to my kids; my mother who meets me for coffee whenever I suggest it, lends me her sailing gear when I go off on trips, and willingly listens to my adventures; Andre’s mother who calls me occasionally, loves to talk about my boys, and always makes me feel like a favourite daughter-in-law when I go to visit her; my aunt Mary who has called me on my birthday for decades, my other aunts and uncles whom I know would make me welcome should I turn up at any time for a coffee or a weekend; and, perhaps, dare I include them, the three wonderful girls my sons are dating who might one day be daughters-in-law, who are all so different from each other, unique and wonderful in their own ways…

Third on my list of blessings is my various friends: Suzanne who had me to her cottage for the first night of this long weekend, and Shelley who will always take the time to walk with me and talk to me and with whom I have shared many many congenial glasses of wine over the past few years, and Susie who writes back to me, long thoughtful responses whenever I write to her, and Catherine whose door is always open, and Darcy who has never refused me a spot on her couch, and the list goes on… Shelia, for example, how could I forget her, my best friend of all who has helped my through more crises than I care to count, and Steve, who really cares about how I am doing, and Rick, my life coach, and Stefa, my newest friend, who is living the dream for me. Thank you all.

And then there are acquaintances, both old and new, who fit into their own category; colleagues from my old school who let me cry on their shoulders more than once, whom I know I could count on in any emergency, and the parents of my kid’s friends who helped me out so much while I was struggling to bring my boys up, and others whom I know even less, the members of the biking group I joined the year before last who pulled me through such a dark period letting me draft behind them and then filling me with sweet potato fries and fellowship, and, even more randomly, a man I went through elementary school with, who I haven’t seen since, who, bizarrely, had been following my blog and noticed when I pulled some recent posts and wrote me, more than once, to check that I was OK. Thank you all too.

I have my health. I can paddle a canoe and ride a bike. I can walk, and hike, and am fit enough now - though who knows for how much longer - to crew on sailboats. I live in a country where health care is provided, free, and my job comes with dental and vision and LTD benefits…

And my job, of course, which I say I don’t want, but which is lovely and easy and actually lots of fun. It provides me with a living wage and would, should I choose to keep it for a while, provide me with a pension. It also gives me a certain social standing and keeps my mind occupied. I don’t know if I’ll ditch it after this year. At risk of sounding repetitive I might choose to cross my fingers and close my eyes and jump, head to sea, but I have it now and it is, without a doubt, a blessing.

Which leads, of course, to money. They say that if you have enough loose change in your pocket to buy a cup of coffee you are richer than the average person on this earth. I spent a whole post complaining lately about how much money I’d recently spent, that I’d rented a lovely house on the river and bought a new car and paid a huge tax bill, and, yes, I do know I ought to be more than just a little ashamed of myself. That I can, that I can do that, all that, that I can spend all that money in one month, and bitch about it, yet not have it change my standard of living one iota, well, that is a blessing for sure. A huge blessing. One that ought to be high on my list.

And then to stuff. I have also complained this past month, too often, about how I am living in an almost empty house, with only one chair. And this, of course, is merely a reflection of relativity. It pisses me off that my husband has so much stuff, two households full, that he is paying someone else to sell it all for him, while I have, relatively, so little, but, yet, compared to the world as a whole I have lots of stuff. I have, did I mention, so much stuff that much of it is being stored in boxes in a shed in his back yard, Even here at my house where I feel I have nothing I have two bicycles, and two boats, a car, a phone and a computer and a camera, a huge bed, a comfy couch, and, really, though I might complain a lot, I have everything I want, and, when I find that I don’t, I have enough money that I go out and buy it. (I see that I am going in circles now, my blessings so rich that they are all getting muddled with each other.)

I am living in a random town in Ontario. This is another thing I have been known to complain about over the past month. But, seriously, it is a blessing, and I ought to be grateful. A quick glance at the news will tell you that many, so many, parts of the world are less well off; ebola, famine, wars… What the heck am I complaining about? I have within walking distance a wide range of shops selling anything a normal person, even from this society, could possibly want, restaurants, two grocery stores stocked with food from around the world at affordable prices, a sports center offering a wide range of activities, a library full of books (and free internet access). There is clean water that flows past my house and cleaner water that flows from my taps, there are good roads, and no chance of being shot at or blown up on the way to work, a fantastic hospital round the corner, and, as I know from the explorations of this very weekend, bicycle trials all over the place. It is paradise. To top it all off I am living in a house on the river with a view out of three sides that, if it doesn’t exactly take your breath away, at least lets you breathe. I watched the sky turn pink this evening as I started to write this – it was so beautiful that I got out my camera for the first time in ten weeks - and I know that the moon will rise soon and lay a silver trail upon the water leading right to my window. It IS a blessing.

And, because of all the above, I will not have to win a lottery in order to live, at least for a while, the dream. Though I may, or may not, go off out into the world again, I have the possibility and ability to do so. If I quit my job I will have ten years (I expect) before my health and money will run out and if I keep it I will still have two days every weekend to hike or bike or canoe a ten week block every summer to leave, fly, free, to go wherever I choose to go, to join a boat to crew or merely to traipse from hostel to hostel and explore. And I have kids and friends who might even accompany me for bits and pieces of it. So either way, with ten years to visit or ten summers to do so, I have the world as my oyster, and nothing, nothing, nothing at all to complain about.

Nothing, no I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to complain about. I have my children’s lives unfolding to look forward to and friends to share my joys with, I have money and health in abundance, and I live in a country that allows me the freedom to do as I choose. I have blessings, compared to the average person in the world, yes, but also, just, without being compared to anyone, blessings, blessings galore, spilling over. I do not have an empty cup, nor one that is half-full, no, I have a cup that is so full it is running over, a cup so full it is almost embarrassing to admit to it. I have everything, everything, absolutely everything that anyone could ever want.

All I have to do is remember that.

And be happy.

I think I can.

I will.

Happy Thanksgiving all!