Thanksgiving '89

It's Chaos Season.

Dear Reader,

In November of 1989, my parents moved us from Illinois to Arizona. A fresh start, my mom told herself and me and my sister and everyone she knew. We left the Midwest and moved to the desert. I was 10. My sister was 9. A week or so before we moved, I remember curling up in my bed and sobbing so violently I dry heaved. My mom, trying to comfort me: New friends and adventures awaited me! We will come back for many visits! “You won’t even remember how upset you were,” she said.

We left a few days after Halloween and arrived in our new house in the desert, a rental, a few weeks before Thanksgiving. My dad’s family came in from Phoenix, and we spent our first Thanksgiving in our new house surrounded by our Arizona aunts, uncles, and cousins: strangers. I remember my relatives all pulling up in the driveway, and my dad excited to see his brothers, but my AZ cousins were foreign to me. This year, there would be no kids party in my grandparents’ basement, no lasagna instead of turkey at my grandma’s condo, and no snowmen or sledding. I moped around with my Walkman, afraid of the rocks outside and what was underneath them (snakes, scorpions, black Widows). I listened to my tapes (DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, ok?) and tried to be invisible. I’d been at my new school for a week or two, and a few of the boys had taken to calling me Hairy because I didn’t shave my legs yet (I originally thought they called me Harry, which was confusing).

By the following year, we’d moved again, this time across town with my new stepfather and stepbrother, and I’d overheard my mom on the phone telling my grandma we were cancelling our trip back to Illinois for Christmas because they couldn’t afford it. Later, I understood it was because of my stepfather. He was being a dick, or my grandma was still mad at my mom for the secret wedding, or, and this is something I’ve only recently considered, but my mom was embarrassed and simply did not want to see anyone. I went into my room, alone, and cried again.

Each year thereafter, my stepfather managed to ruin the holidays in a new and special way. *Going with my dad for a few days was fun until it got closer to going home again. My stepfather would be sitting at the table waiting for us to arrive on time and then laying into us about all the shoddy work we’d done in our chores before we’d left. When I got older, I spent most holidays with my first husband’s family and avoided mine completely. This meant my dad or my mom or both often spent Thanksgiving or Christmas alone.

Now, I look at my daughter, who is the same age I was when we moved, and I feel horribly sad for the little girl I was in that room sobbing her guts up. I hear her gasping for breath, desperate to know things will be ok. If I could talk to her now, I’d tell her nothing was going to be ok for a long time. The next decade or so of her life was going to be fucked up and hard, and then next decade was going to be less fucked up but still hard, and just when she had it all sorted out, she would become a mother herself, the ultimate open wound.

We’re spending Thanksgiving this year with a merge of my second husband’s family, a few of my dad’s siblings, my cousins, and my cousin’s spouses parents. We don’t always get together like this (last three years in a row we all did our own things as smaller groups), but it’s nice when it happens. I’m grateful we’re having a big gathering this year. It reminds me of how I grew up. The people and the scene have changed, but it feels good. This is not to say I’m having a holiday without drama. There’s drama because there’s family, and there’s always family drama. However! The light is there, and I’m reaching for it.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone. Grateful for all of you, too.

I’ll Probably Drink Too Much and Get Weepy about The Old Days and Insist We Listen to Parents Just Don’t Understand,

Stephanie

*Edited to add that I want to be clear my dad wasn’t fun, but he’d drive us to Phoenix where we’d hang out with our AZ cousins who became our besties was fun. Holidays with my PHX cousins (after the initial break-in period) were the best.

Reading:

This semester has been BUSY but I’m picking my way through two story collections right now.

Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund (just her heard her talk too, she’s amazing)

Ninetails by Sally Wen Mao (also went to her reading a few weeks ago — brilliant)