Warning: Gushing ahead. Forgive me in advance for the gooey prose you are about to read, but I'm still basking in the afterglow of Thanksgiving gratitude and the truth is, every once in a while I can't help myself. All the sappiness builds up in me and just I have to go Hallmark.

Why fight it, I say.

I have so much gratitude itching inside me right now it's going to spill right over into the next post. I can feel it.

Plus, it's just plain nice to break from whining about the don't have's, and the things I've given up and monotony of struggle. Blah, blah, blah, blahty-blah.

This is what I do have:

I have two of the coolest kids anywhere for daughters and I have time with them everyday. Even when I don't really want it.

I have a husband who takes them out of the house for hours every chance he gets because he likes hanging with them. And also because he understands now the finer points of maintaining my mental health.

I have two bathrooms. Let me say that again. I have two bathrooms with two toilets that flush. No waiting.

I have central heat and a lovely fir-tree view out my office windows. (And I have an office.) 

I have two healthy parents who I will never understand, but whom I know support me unconditionally even when they think my decisions are crazy-insane.

I have friendships with roots that run so deep and roots grown so inextricably through each other that those friends have become my family.

I have access to archive.org and streaming audio of almost every Grateful Dead show ever played. And I had the good fortune to attend 30-some of those shows, in varying states of consciousness, before Jerry Garcia died.

I have my family living all in one house, healthy, in a way that is possible only because I once left.

My family is crazy. When I think of all the things I've survived, I not only feel lucky, I feel amazingly blessed. I decided a long time ago to take it one day at a time, and I do!

After gliding through the New Hampshire holiday with extended family, kids, and new boyfriend, I got online today and booked Christmas and February break, too. I am not afraid.

Sure, there was drama over Thanksgiving, but what would a family vacation be without some swearing, reminiscing, and rehashing?

My family and I took stabs at each other between the hugs, tears, and promises to always stay in touch. Then we said our goodbyes as if this was our last week on earth. The stock market is going to hell in a hand basket, but I continue to breathe deeply and say to myself over and over, this too shall pass. I reassure myself that I'm still here and body/mind are functioning well, so what the hey?

This time last year, I was embarking on a singles journey north to Maine to begin a dating frenzy. Make a note gals: Maine and Alaska are desperate for attractive, half way intelligent females and, if you are really eager to make a lasting partnership, I recommend you jump right in. You can be a star!

Even though I didn't meet Mr. Right during that trip, I did fortify my mission to be self-reliant and open to whatever the future might hold.

Fast forward to the future and here we are. I stand before you as an eight-year kidney transplant survivor. (Yesterday, December 30th was my transplant anniversary and also, ironically enough, what would have been my 23rd wedding anniversary, if I hadn't been divorced for the last five years.)

Ever wonder about things like that? What are the chances a kidney transplant and a wedding anniversary would end up being on the same day?

Well, I celebrate in style. I celebrate everything in style. The first year after my divorce became final, I toasted with a glass of champagne every night for 365 days.

A year ago I'd just ejected my alcoholic husband from our home. That was an achievement, to be sure, but nearly all of his stuff remained. I was exhausted and a long way from free.

I'd been invited to join my extended family for Thanksgiving at my oldest brother's place. But not even the prospect of laughter and one of my sister-in-law's fabulous holiday feasts was enough to convince me to drive 11 hours and submit to the queries about Edgar and me and our marriage, however loving.

So I ate turkey with a friend at a diner and promised myself a normal Thanksgiving this year.

Well, what is that, exactly? When I was growing up, it meant being part of a passel of relatives and friends gathered around my mother's groaning board. When I was grown, it meant heaping my own table with too much food and collecting as many members of my tribe who needed a holiday meal as I could find. After I married, it meant driving a couple of hours to take Ed's mother out to eat — and that occasionally meant eating a truly depressing turkey dinner.

Now? My hostess this year, my other brother's girlfriend, took me on a tour of her lovely home and I became quite wistful, missing the house I love and am letting go. I envied her preparations with food and drink, and changing her clothes at the last minute, even her having to get up from the meal to make the forgotten gravy.

But I also basked in the clever conversation, the relaxation and warmth, the complete absence of the enmity and frustration I'd grown accustomed to in the last years of my marriage.

And I really was grateful: that's what Thanksgiving is about. 

All that has transpired among my family this holiday takes longer to digest than even the biggest turkey holiday.

My mother and step-father (still getting used to calling this stranger any sort of father) swept through town town in a fit of self-importance, leaving behing gifts from their recent Mexican holiday.

The dishes were barely dry and it was time for a seven-hour drive to upstate NY where my sister and I removed my father's car from his possession for his own safety (dementia has robbed him of his driving skills). We lied and said we accidentally crashed it but actually put it into storage. 

Holidays...what fun. But who had my back through all the bickering and tears? Rob. Gotta hand it to that guy. He's a good one to have aroun.

Adrian will be two in just a few weeks. It's hard to believe that it's been two whole years already. Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday that I was that frightened, mess of a woman about to embark on what seemed to be this hopeless, depressing journey of single mom-hood.

Sometimes still, if I'm not careful, it's easy to revert back to that woman — let my fears get the best of me. But for today, I must say, that I am no longer her. 

This journey has transformed me, made me stronger, made me realize that I have potential far beyond what I could have ever imagined. And for that, I am thankful.

However, some of the transformative effects are not so great. This journey has rendered me guarded, cautious, and at times very cynical. Most of the time I am certain that I could never trust a man with my heart ever again. Other times, I have the clarity to know that I want to.

I suppose it's all part of the process of healing — working through the hurt — and when it's done, when I'm fully healed, I'll know and hopefully drop some of the cynicism.

For now, I need it.

Levi's mother emailed to ask what we were doing for Adrian's birthday, and if she could see him again. I told her that I'm taking him to the Dora show in Manhattan, and invited her to come along.

I must admit that it hurts to see her again. Opens the floodgates and all of the memories: hopes, dreams, fantasies of my perfect life with my son and Levi — my perfect family — rush back in. The reality that things are not what they were intended to be can feel like a smack in the face.

But I am trying to have faith, trying to be optimistic that although my life certainly has not gone as planned, it is good. We have a good life, and a wonderful family structure even sans Levi.

Steps forward in real life tend to make the imp that lives in my brain backpedal frantically. "Run, run!" he yips, waving his arms about, Kermit-like. "It's too much! Ruuuun!"

I've gotten much, much better at shutting him up. He shrills away, but I've learned, mostly, not to pay attention. But when it's a hard week, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, when I'm sad — that's when his voice gets harder to ignore.

This moving thing, for example. It's big. Sure, I was thinking about moving anyway. Sure, it's not all about the boy. But part of it is. Taking this step says we think we're actually going to make it. On my bad days, this is what I worry about: What if we're not? What if the magic and wonderfulness and perfection of what this actually hinges on is the fact that it's long distance?

It didn't help that our cohabitation experiment wasn't a success. That I handled it badly. That he's backtracked since then.

Then there's this month: finalizing the legal documentation of my inability to make a relationship work. Just when I think that I am past this, that I've come to terms, it rears its head and reminds me that I don't have a great track record. 

"What about this?" crows the imp, waving legal papers at me. "Why would you think anything ever works out?"

Normally, I know, deep down, that my fears are largely unjustified. That I'm worrying about something that is so "might be, maybe," that I really shouldn't worry at all. This, though, this feels more real. It feels immediate, and it feels scary, and it's hard to talk myself down.

There's nothing to do, I suppose, but do — imp or no — and see what happens.

OMG...even my hair follicles are swollen. I am typing this while eating left over sweet potatoes because I just read they can debloat you. I'll get to that in a moment.

First, I just want to announce that the only thing I will strangely be grateful for these next few days is early darkness.

Darkness makes bloated people look more attractive.

Allow me to point out there is a marked post-holiday difference between swollen divorced women and swollen married women.

That being, that married women usually have a matching swollen spouse.

Single divorced women feel swollen alone and have little desire to attempt to get dressed attractively and socialize with the opposite sex.

Bloating for us is a lonely sport.

Post-holiday emotional and physical exhaustion when you wing a holiday without a wingman usually leads at some point to thumbing lazily through women's magazines you've been meaning to read searching for tips to lose weight.

On page 23 of the December issue of First Magazine I found the sweet potato flat-belly connection.

It said, "Each of these tasty tubers contains 950 mg of potassium — nearly twice the amount in a banana.

This electrolyte enhances the kidneys ability to eliminate retained fluids, banishing bloat in as little as 24 hours.

Plus sweet potatoes' betaine clears fatty deposits from the liver, accelerating the organs breakdown of belly fat for fuel."

Okay, if they say so.

I must not have eaten enough of them during Thanksgiving dinner to offset the other 20 dishes.

The ones I am eating now still have baby marshmallows attached.

I am not sure if that's a deal breaker. I'll let you know if I am still unable to get dressed in 24 hours.

Attitude Is Everything!
Debbie

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