Life is sure good at throwing people curve balls. We all work so hard to make sure that everything, every situation we go into is well planned and picture perfect, because we apparently believe that this how we must do it in order to get things done, have fun, lead productive lives. But if you think about it, when we talk about the best times in our lives, it's often the times that didn't go perfectly that we look back on with the most joy.
My favorite Thanksgiving, the one my family always talks about around the Thanksgiving table with giggles and "yay, and remember how..." exclamations, happened many years ago. I lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and my parents had a small vacation cabin on the other side of the state near the Mississippi River. We had an early snow that year, on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was young, probably 26 or 27, and something as common as a Wisconsin snow storm was not about to make me miss a family Thanksgiving. So I set out that Wednesday, alone, in my little front wheel drive car (a Mitsubishi, I think) on what was usually about a 3 hour drive. About 7 or 8 hours later, after driving through snow pack and barely making it down the gravel road to the cabin, I finally got there. I was exhausted and so ready for a fun family holiday.
And in comes the curve - the power was out. Lots of heavy snow had downed power lines and most of the area was dark. So much for Thanksgiving dinner. So much for heat, for that matter. My dad got up every few hours during the night to keep a big fire going in the fireplace, and on that Thanksgiving morning we packed up the food he'd brought along for the feast in coolers and headed back to Madison (where my bother lived) as soon as we could plow out. My 90 year old grandmother was with us, and we really did need to get warm and have running water. It's the little things... And so Thanksgiving Dinner that year was at (drumroll...) Denny's. Yep, sounds kinda like a National Lampoon Vacation movie, doesn't it.
My family, like most, is plenty dysfunctional for it, and I know we were all laughing so hard our belly's ached. We were tired from a long, chilly night, and our sense of the absurd was pretty acute right then. We'll never forget that Thanksgiving. Others have been nice, or tense, or well planned, or boring, or crazy, or huge with every dysfunctional member present, but that one, it takes the cake - or, I guess I should say, turkey!
We had the feast the following weekend at my parents' home in Illinois, so we didn't miss out and really got to have two Thanksgivings, but it's the one at Denny's that we had to drive through the aftermath of a snow storm to have that we really remember. So tomorrow, keep in mind that when the absurd happens, just have another glass of wine (or two!) and enjoy whatever life throws at you. Perfect and well planned are highly overrated.
Happy Thanksgiving Trills,
Laura
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