Stayin' Alive

As if to help with my holiday preparations, this tune started playing on the internal sound system yesterday evening. In a lot of ways I think of this as a happy number -- it's the kind of song that gets people of all ages out on the dance floor. And in a lot of ways I feel pretty happy about the fact that it's Thanksgiving, and, except in the years that I actively resisted, the fact that Thanksgiving means getting together with extended family. But not in every way.

I've been working hard over the past few years to shed all the yucky associations from my childhood -- and the Thanksgivings of my youth are right up there on the list of the top five yuckiest parts of being me as a kid. Growing up in an alcoholic home, holidays meant that Dad drank too much, Mom got stressed out, and kids were expected to stay at the (tense, uncomfortable, shame-laden) table even longer than we were at normal meals. The aftershock of that has left me with zero desire to cook a turkey, any of the fixin's, or even to sit down for a meal at all.

In my mid 30s, I went to Alanon meetings for a period of time, where I learned that my feelings about this holiday were really common for people who grew up in the same environment, and I saw firsthand how, for the people who had it worse than I did, or who for whatever reason didn't survive with as much of their spirit intact as I did, quite literally felt that staying alive was the best they could hope for over the holidays.

Being confronted with all this pain was profoundly depressing, yes, but it also helped reveal to me that I have choices -- I can choose to stay mired in that, I can choose to cut myself off from my family and from the Thanksgiving tradition so many others are embracing, or I can redefine the holiday for myself.

This year, I'm happy to say I'm choosing option three, which, today, means feeling profound gratitude for my children and my niece, who were here to snuggle with me this morning; all my beautiful people who are with me in spirit if not in body; and my own combination of courage, willingness and yes, desire to embrace my extended family this afternoon and sit down at the family table.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget, John Travolta in his prime:

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother,

you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin',

and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive...