The first year I missed Thanksgiving with my huge crazy extended family was in 2005. I’d moved to Canada two months earlier to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. I’d just turned 19. I was in college. My little future was bright. Shiny. It made me sad to miss Thanksgiving, but my mom sent me pictures and I knew I’d be there the next year.
The year after that I was in Arizona for Thanksgiving but my family decided to spend it in individual families rather than the usual hullabaloo. It was okay though because I’d be there the next year.
Only I wasn’t.
The next year, a month after I married Poor Kyle and moved to Canada, my American family celebrated Thanksgiving without me. Hullabaloo-style.
Missing Thanksgiving made me sad.
That was four Thanksgivings ago, back when I had nothing better to do with my life than sit around feeling sad about missing Thanksgiving with my family.
I guess I thought I would stop missing them after while. Once I got busier. With more to distract me from my homesickness.
And while it’s true that I’m busier now than ever before—and busy with things that (generally) make me happy—I was wrong about the other.
Missing the hullabaloo Thanksgiving never gets easier. I’ve been out of the familial loop for 7 Thanksgivings now, and I feel just as sad about that fact today as I did in 2005.
Only difference is that in 2005 I had a bright shiny future to distract me.
This year I have nothing.
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