This Thanksgiving

So Thankgiving's coming up and you brace yourself for the slew of relatives that you can't be sure about.

You know the older loud-mouth Trumpsters love food, so you set aside a mountain of pies for them to put their thumb in and pulled out a plum and say "What a good boy am I".

You setup a chill corner at the end of your backyard filled with craft beers so the younger die-hard Democrats can sit and enjoy themselves with tales and plans to fix the world.

But what about Lisa and her new girlfriend Angelina? What about Janice that's now called James? What would Ron and Rupert's children say to the other children? Questions will be asked and awkward glances will be thrown. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

And it is so not fair to expect us to 'just roll with it'. This is an era we don't quite understand. You can't think of how it would feel to exchange long kisses with same gender partner. Won't the boobs awkwardly touch each other? Or the penis? Oh lord.

We don't understand it the same way we don't understand the allure of Sriracha or turkey bacon. Our body shudders when we tasted the weird texture and flavor of Rosie's roast and was told it was fake meat. We don't get why everyone needs to show their asses and boobs in social media.

We were told it was good. We were told it was for the better future. We were told it was personal right and empowerment. We were told we are old and backwards for not understanding that. They are right. We don't understand that. This is not who we are.

That doesn't stop us from asking Lisa does Angelina prefer red or white wine. That doesn't stop us from offering James (who lives the furthest) our guest room to crash the day before as we always did. And we have a month before Christmas to sort out the angry questions about what Rupert and Ron's kids say about their dads because kids will be kids.

We will still flinch when we see Angelina and Lisa holding hand. We will still take a deep breath when Rupert and Ron's kids run from the playroom and called out, "Where's our Daddy and Papa??" We will keep mistaking Janice, I mean James', gender pronouns and heartbroken over the long luscious locks of her, I mean him, that was cut to military crew cut.

We will still do that and more. But we will also carefully deflect the conversation when we deemed someone was going to be mean on others. We will also engage those who are excluded to assist us in menial tasks to make them feel less alone. We will stand true to our guests, come what may.

Because even though we don't understand, that doesn't mean we love them less. We may need to adapt and learn to love the newly shared version just like we love the version we've known for years, but we will get there someday. We may miss and grieve for the version we've known for years, but we will overcome that eventually.

Thanksgiving is about being thankful, and we are hosting/ coming to the celebration because we are thankful for the friends and family we have. We are thankful or the sweet and wonderful people they are, even though the packaging might be new and unfamiliar. Here's to abundance to thank for. Here's to love.

 

* Dedicated to my ex-stepmother-in-law, who despite the shock of having this weird specimen in her conventional and conservative abode still gone the extra length to make my visit there welcomed and perfect. Love you lots, Linda.