Here in the States, we’ve just celebrated Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday any country could have because it’s not really about the Native Americans getting on with the settlers, is it? That’d sorta be like a holiday in Ireland celebrating the ten minutes the Irish got on with the English. Yeah, sure, we then stole your land and killed you for fun, but we really had a good party there for a bit, right? I do wonder what Native Americans think of this holiday…

But I digress.

This year was the first year I could remember that I had something to be grateful for other than my old stand-bys, “my health and I’m thankful my parents didn’t beat me with live electric cables.” Don’t get me wrong, I AM thankful for those things, but after one has used those for sixteen consecutive years it begins to sound like your life sucks the big one.

I used to dread Thanksgiving because I was expected to socialize as well as say what I was grateful for. There were times I wanted to say, “Well, I think everyone is grateful I’ve managed to ignore the voices for yet another year.”

This year, the year I finally had things to be grateful for, no one bloody asked! And you can’t go around crowing about how great everything is because you sound like an utter twat.

So I’m happy. I have a life-mate I adore. We’re both gainfully employed with the state in jobs we enjoy, with co-workers we actually like. We’re looking into perhaps, maybe buying a house we’re in love with so me can start our dog-family. With our jobs, we could be out of debt in 2-3 years. And we even have health insurance and paid vacations. Yay! Life doesn’t suck! It hasn’t not sucked in a very long time.

And it was entertaining to watch my English husband celebrate his first Thanksgiving by over-eating.

[This is a repost from a now-defunct blog. Original post date: 23 November 2007]