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I have a nephew that was born just after Thanksgiving. Every year, my Christmas crazed family begins to get a little more excited for the jollier holiday a little bit earlier every year. With some even touting trees up mere days after Halloween jack o’ lanterns have hit the bins. Now that this has been going on for the past few years, my Thanksgiving loving nephew’s favorite catchphrase has become, “Respect the Turkey”, said with both authority and from a genuine place of love for the holiday of gratitude that he was so thoughtfully born near.
My house is not immune from this sentiment as my daughter decorates her room as the remaining trick or treaters are still walking home. I, however, try to relish in my nephew's Thanksgiving love as I replace all of my witches and bats with scarecrows and turkeys even as my heart gets into the Christmas spirit a little more everyday (thank you Home Goods). The difference for me, I think, is the remembrance of a time when I was much younger and the world was still in a time of “respecting the turkey”.
Not only did the holiday commercials wait to begin airing during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, but the stores did not put out displays until the week before December. I can also remember being little and begging our Mom to let us play the Christmas records while we prepared the Thanksgiving feast the day before, when we got home from school early, only to be told, “not until tomorrow ”. And because we waited for those songs until after the turkey feast was put into the oven, we enjoyed those songs that much more. They were not on demand or even overplayed, they were special. It was a less rushed and sometimes simpler time.
It’s not that the excitement for the next holiday was non-existent, just a little less in your face and there was the sense that a lot more patience was also present. It makes me nostalgic for a simpler time and as I contemplate exactly what “Respect the Turkey” means for me, I can’t help but see the parallels to the spiritual practice of living in the moment.
In this moment, I have been in a bit of a trickier period of my marriage. It is a season of learning to love each other as we both grow and change in new ways as we have both been tackling some of our old worn out patterns and mindfully trying to adapt new kinder, more thoughtful ways to coexist. The work is hard and sometimes lonely, but I wouldn’t change a thing. The biggest thing I have taken away from these seasons of growth throughout my life is that the other side is always more beautiful than where you started. I have absolute trust and faith that we are in this season for what will eventually feel like a blip, but the growth and rewards that we will each reap, both together and separately will be well worth the difficult conversations and uncomfortable moments.
As this is the month of gratitude attitude, I sit in this season thankful that I have a partner that is both willing and capable of the growing and changing that we are going through at this time. I rest at night grateful that he is continually by my side and devoted to working through our issues even in the awkwardness. Although this has been a more turbulent and unsteady year for the both of us, I know that it will be worth it on the other side. I have always believed that our marriage is full of peaks and valleys. After 28 years together this is not the first valley year, but I know what the peaks feel like and am confident that there are higher peaks than we can even imagine coming soon.
Now we could easily push all of this down and carry on mindlessly walking the ways we always have, or plow forward quickly moving past this season into the more enjoyable next one ahead…but I know that it won’t be the right way. Taking the easy or “more fun” road only brings the same issues up over and over again to be addressed at a later date. So we will spend this season diving deep and working together to build a better future us. It’s what we both deserve.
So live in this moment I will, for I know that because we didn’t rush and we practiced patience the payoff will be special and hold more weight. I don’t know what season you are in right now, but whatever it holds try and enjoy the place where you are right now…it doesn’t last, and someday you will remember fondly what you were rushing by in the moment. Savor it, try to find the things to be thankful for, and for goodness sake, “Respect the Turkey”!