Stuffing on the Brain

Though not sure what I will end up doing this week, I do realize I have to face up to Thanksgiving. Ironically, it's the first one I'm having in a new location and I don't really want to have it at all. I hear half-hearted comments and see the eye rolls of familial dread from coworkers and acquaintances who regardless of location or relationship status always have a huge family table to go to. I appreciate the attempts of good friends to invite me to their own huge family tables in an effort to lessen the thoughts assaulting me about where I will be on Thursday. I know what small family I have means well when attempting to offer "something fun" to do even though we haven't done holidays on our own in over ten years because whats the point...but really, all I've been is pissed off.

Not that I am not grateful for the attempts at consolation. Not that I don't appreciate that there are others who care about how many hours a day I spend plowing through Kleenex like a harvest of salty regret gone wrong. Not that I don't think there are those who genuinely would enjoy an extra person at the table, whether it be as a buffer for in laws or as a good deed for the occasion. Not that I don't have mental thanks to give for those who have helped me stay in existence and ...well; sane's a strong word, but you see what I mean...for the past three months. But all I really feel is pissed off.

Being from a separated and disjointed family who really doesn't merge much unless someone dies; and then only selectively, I can actually stand outside of the Seinfeld-like episodes that are holidays and days that seem to feel like I'm being Punked. Detachment used to be my inborn talent. Now it seems it may have slipped away a bit. I feel the urge to take a fully cooked and dressed bird and hurtle it through a window as a hungry family looks on. That would be something that would make me feel better these days. I could imagine laughing maniacally as in an effort to diffuse the rage someone would say "pass the peas" or "how about those ______ (insert sports team name here) and maybe I would feel a little less pissed off...maybe not.

I know I'm at a point of unreasonable emotion where I never know whether I will laugh in an inappropriate manner somewhere somber, or break into sobs at a fast food restaurant and be unable to drive for the rest of the day because my eyes have swollen to a mammoth size with mail slot slits begging to be closed. Quite inconvenient when you have a few more miles to get home and at least one person with you to drop off before you go. Unreasonable emotion that makes me wonder things like:

• Why do we even need to eat a turkey? Isn't there something else that takes less effort and is equally tasty?
• Why did I ever choose to spend this year in the place I grew up? Comfort does not lie in seeing other people's spouses children residing in  a two family Brooklyn style house with one or more sets of relatives attached...does it?
• How long will it take me to finish a book about all this because really, the fall has given me so much ammo I think there may be a series in the making?
• Is it supposed to hurt so much when it was me who decided to uproot everything that was familiar and comfortable to start again at 34 in a place that I spent most of my previous years fleeing?
• Why would anyone think I even want to commune with others in the unpredictable state my grey matter exists in and would I extend the same courtesies to someone so unstable?

Just some thoughts that keep dancing through my head. Just a few of the ones I can actually make public without severing ties further. Just some...stuffing that fills my head like bread up the turkey's metaphorical ass. And if I couldn't write these down...Turkey Flies through Living Room Window Onto Busy Street, Killing Two, Injuring Seven ...

Or we could just all choose to stay home. The possibilities are endless.