move over gratitude...and welcome to Holland
Thanksgiving is usually my favorite holiday, putting aside its questionable historical context, what’s not to like about getting together with your loved ones over an enormous quantity of food in the middle of workweek?
During this time, what is as ubiquitous as turkey is the idea of gratitude, which is especially meaningful and poignant in 2020. But in this extraordinary year on which we are about to (happily) draw down the curtains, we should think about FORGIVENESS before we sprint our way to the land of gratitude.
I don’t mean forgiveness in a simplistic sense (with its underlying religious intentions) of someone being wronged and then being magnanimous to make peace with the perpetrator. I don’t mean self-forgiveness as part of self-care.
The forgiveness I’m referring to is recognizing all the turmoil and pain, politically, economically, socially, and personally, that have defined this year and then validating, even embracing, our (re)actions and feelings. Just as all the successes, loves, joys and happy stories have a firm place in our lives, so do the unexpected, heartbreaking and negative feelings and situations we have all been experiencing this year.
It’s perfectly ok for us to lay out all the chaos and pain, recognize them for what they are and then forgive them. So, this Thanksgiving, I’m forgiving the bitter divisiveness, hurtful words and actions excused lamely by political differences, the pandemic and our collective fears. I’m forgiving the feeling of helplessness, disappointment, frustration, and uncertainty. And numerous other could have’s, should have’s and would have’s. There is no particular person, company, government or a thing to forgive - just validating the feelings and situations and making peace with them.
Practicing this kind of mindful forgiveness seems like an act of generosity that is much needed in these times. Generous to ourselves that goes deeper than any ritualistic self-care.
I would like to leave you with a short essay, Welcome to Holland, written in 1987 by a mother, Emily Perl Kingsley, with a Down syndrome child. She wrote this piece to describe the experience of raising a child with disability. Even though this particular backdrop is completely irrelevant to most of you, the essay is so fitting to how we’ve all been living this year and the consequences that we will live with for years to come.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Here is to forgiving 2020 and being grateful! Happy Thanksgiving.