Instead Of Presenting

I don't particularly like Thanksgiving. It's not so much that I dislike it, it's that it just always seemed a bit superfluous. The traditions involved feel... over the top?

Today I stood at the stove in the kitchen, pan-searing chicken breasts with butter and herbs, thinking about the non-traditional day we'd gone for. A small get-together had seemed like the perfect plan. No turkey or multi-day cooking marathon. No dressing up, catching up, or punching up performative small talk.

At the table across the room, Isobel and my mom sat chatting. Ava followed Isobel's dad around the kitchen, like a shadow, sniffing the floor for dropped food. He popped over to check on the potatoes. Laughter flowed easily as he returned. Mom came to check on the squash and brussel sprouts. Isobel floated past me, smiling, resuming her construction of the salad.

I'm usually the one trying to stay out of the way. Not today. There was nothing to dodge—no yelling, no arguing, no... chaos. It didn't feel performative at all. My nervous system actually spent a national holiday just relaxing. I tried to think of another time I'd experienced that, and I couldn't.

Standing there at the stove, taking the chicken off and moving it to the cutting board, I wondered what'd changed. Was it me? Had years of therapy, sobriety, and setting healthy boundaries really worked this well? Was it the non-traditional approach we'd chosen for the day? A combination?

Maybe it was that we put gratitude first and performance second (or not at all)?

I'm grateful we had food to eat and a place to eat it. I'm grateful we could share the day with people we love. I'm grateful we showed up to give—to contribute by chatting, cooking, cleaning, and choosing to be present instead of presenting.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that those are the traditions. The choice isn't if you do them, it's how.