We tend to be grateful for what makes us happy: a sign of affection, a raise, a promotion at work, some public recognition, an award, children, life, birthdays, love or a tangible sign of support. . But we rarely stop to give thanks for everything that didn’t go as planned; those failures that feel synonymous with misery; those moments where what we took for granted shattered in our arms; for the discomfort that itches and makes us red; for everything that we cannot understand and the wounds that have not healed despite time.
It’s hard to embrace the shadows. It is very complicated to celebrate the grays. It is an odyssey to applaud the tumbles.
This Thanksgiving, I want to dedicate it to the losses, the pain, the estrangements, the doors that closed and the many silences in which I drown from time to time. Thank you so much!
It is not a celebration of pessimism nor an intention to glorify precariousness; It’s just that, while I hammer these keys, I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I am that that life and career plan that I wrote in college has not been fulfilled.
Being grateful for the things that were not is perhaps the best way to open the door to what will be; Letting go of the pen is perhaps the best way we have to cross out and erase, to write again, to tear out pages, to heal on paper and in the soul. What we were denied is perhaps the whim of the ego and complicity with the ancestors. I don’t know. These dilemmas intrigue and comfort me.
The more the years go by, the more meaning I find in this Anglo-Saxon tradition of celebrating gratitude. This assessment has nothing to do with what we are taught in textbooks or at festivals of children dressed as turkeys and pilgrims. No. Appreciation does not come from conquests or colonizations; It is not the historical context of breaking bread as a sign of peace… it is, in reality, an act of rebellion against the same system that perhaps established it.
Thanksgiving is something much more personal.
When I was little, one of my uncles didn’t have the chance to go back to Mexico for the holidays. So, those of us who could traveled to Arizona to celebrate with him beforehand, with turkey and tamales, in a party that was for us a small and early version of what Christmas was.
Over the years, that family dinner on the other side of the wall became a celebration of life and everything that overwhelms us in it. We realized the fragility of health and dreams; the delicate lines that cross in families; the times we clash; how little we see each other; the injustices and truncated desires; the words that never end and the hugs that will never be given again. And we make peace with what was and what will be.
So, if in the end we toast, let it be just for that: for the bumps and setbacks, for the desires that were transformed, for the blessed mistakes that have us here, for the lack of experience and the glut of advice, for everything what went wrong for us, for everything that actually led us here today. Nothing would have been so perfect. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Today I also give thanks for you.
Maritza L. Félix is a freelance journalist, producer and writer who has won multiple awards for her journalistic investigative work. She is the founder of Conecta Arizona, the producer of the podcast Cruzando Líneas and the co-producer and co-host of Comadres al Aire. She is a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s JSK Community Impact program, The Carter Center, EWA, Fi2W, Listening Post Collective, Poynter, and CUNY’s Journalism Leadership and Innovation program, among others.
Twitter: @MaritzaLFelix
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Email: maritza@connectarizona.com