If there is beauty in pain then I should feel fucking gorgeous.
This ‘thankful’ Thanksgiving season is tricky. I don’t want to say I’m grateful for the challenges we faced this year. They sucked. Plain and simple. And pretending otherwise feels dishonest.
What This Year Really Looked Like
A change in my husband’s career this January quietly altered the trajectory of our family’s financial plan and the stability we expected going into 2025. Seven months later, just when I finally felt like things might be okay, an unexpected medical diagnosis for a very close family member shook us to our core. And then, in October, we lost another one of our family’s brightest stars.
People love to say, “Find the silver lining,” or, “Everything happens for a reason.” Throughout my life, I’ve tried to believe that — to hunt for the small bright thing in the middle of the chaos. And yes, sometimes that helps. But what about when the darkness is too heavy? What about when you don’t want to “push through” or “look on the bright side”? What about when you just want to sit in the rain and feel sad or angry or tired?
Lately, I keep thinking back to my senior quote from 2003: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” But I be honest here? I’m not sure you can dance through grief. Sometimes the storm doesn’t pass quickly. Sometimes you’re not meant to dance — you’re meant to stand there, soaked and shivering, until the clouds decide to shift.
And that’s okay.
It’s okay not to be grateful.
Not everything deserves gratitude.
Some things just deserve to be felt.
To Be Continued…
To be continued — because despite everything, there were people who held me up this year, and they deserve their own space.
Don’t miss out on the Just 4 Moms podcast episode: “Grateful for the Chaos: What We are Actually Thankful for this Year”
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