Thanksgiving alone

Today was the first holiday I’ve ever spent alone- no family, no friends, not even a puppy to keep me company, and I think I learned a lot about myself. I got up early and made the decision to be happy, rather then dwelling on the fact that my plans were cancelled at the last minute and being sad and gloomy all day. Since I hadn’t bought food for Thanksgiving the first thing I had to do was buy some food…I was not going to be hungry on Thanksgiving, no matter how alone I was. I decided to go the route of comfort food and bought the ingredients for some chicken and gnocchi soup (I was hoping it would taste like Olive Garden’s soup, alas it did not) and decided to buy a bottle of wine as well—a nice Zinfandel I have had in the past that never disappoints—plus it was on sale!

I spent all morning making soup, enjoyed it around noon, and then proceeded to sit around doing nothing. It was at this point that I realized that I wasn’t extremely sad or lonely, I was content just relaxing in my apartment with some good soup and the full day ahead of me.

I’m not going to go through my entire days activities, mostly because it would bore you to tears, but I did get some good practicing in. Unfortunately my upstairs neighbors do not appreciate flute music, we have gotten into mini fights about the amount of time I practice, the amount of loud music I am always playing (note that I do not play loud music all the time), and various other things of this nature. So I wasn’t too surprised when I started hearing a lot of obnoxious stomping around upstairs and loud shouting. Alas, such is life.

I’m thankful for so many things in my life: my wonderful family and friends, the teachers and colleagues I have met at my new university, my students who seem to teach me more then I teach them, and my newfound comfort with being alone. It’s not that I was always afraid of being alone before, but I always preferred being with people, running around and doing stuff with friends and family. It was very rare for me to want to stay home and actually stay home all day and enjoy myself. I think a big part of growing up is being comfortable enough with yourself to go out alone, stay home and relax, and just enjoy those moments of alone time without being bored or distracted or just wanting to be somewhere else.

Although this Thanksgiving didn’t have turkey, mashed potatoes, ham, stuffing, pumpkin pie, or good time with family, I think I have found myself to be more thankful for much more of my life after thinking about it all day alone then I would have if I had spent all day with family and friends. Sometimes one needs time to reflect in order to truly appreciate how much one has.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, I hope you enjoyed your day of food, friends, and family—or if you didn’t get the chance to partake in those traditional activities I hope you enjoyed yourself anyways!

So much soup!

….also here’s a picture of my soup! Yummy!