Thoughts of Thanksgiving

Collectively, the Dissident Daughters decided we would like to continue our tradition we started last Thanksgiving season-each Dissident Daughter would like to acknowledge and celebrate one "serious" and one "not so serious" element/experience within the past we for which we are grateful. Our thoughtful selves to the core, Anne and I were discussing last week if we knew what we things we were going to post we were grateful for. Of course, we both (and I daresay I can speak for the other dissident daughters and include them in this thought) are always the most grateful for the relationships we are blessed to be a part of. Trite can be true-nevertheless, in an effort to avoid trite, at the outset I would like to express that the Dissident Daughters are extremely grateful for the relationships we are fortunate to be a part of. That said, I feel we can highlight particular aspects of these relationships we have been especially or newly grateful for during the past year. I believe we started in birth order last year, so this year we'll move up one and begin with jill-our self-proclaimed resident asshole we are all grateful for.

Jill:

Jill here. Not really feeling a huge outpouring of gratitude right now if you want me to be frank. It's just one of those days where I feel exhausted and irritable for no major reason in particular and for lots of small reasons that just piled up slowly. Sometimes the whole concept of gratitude can be annoying to me because we have just created another abomination with the 30 days of Thanksgiving where you see one of two basic typologies the shape: The I have the perfect husband, kids, parents, job, life group; or the glass half full group where they take a negative (for example a messy house) and turn it into a positive  (I have hobbies or kids or whatever). So as you can see, my cynicism is at an all time high today.

And sometimes, it can be hard for me to even be thankful because I feel like there is a lot wrong much of the time. I gravitate toward the negative, and if you know me, I am sure you will agree. I think this is not because I'm an asshole but because I realize that is where I need to focus my efforts...all the things I need to fix rather than focus my energy on the things that are going well. Everyone has stuff to be thankful for. And I think my resistance stems from the fact that we have perverted the idea of thankfulness into another "you should do this" operation. And whenever we feel like we should do something I question the authenticity.  I also think that sometimes my most authentic gratitude comes from an experience that was uncomfortable or painful at the time and that doesn't make a very good sound bite, plus it requires perspective and reflection so it is hard to do.

So what am I authentically thankful for? I'm truly thankful for each and every chance and risk I have taken. Not all of them have worked out. Perhaps even the great majority of them I consider full blown fuck ups. But, I'm not afraid of the unknown or change. And that has paradoxically brought much security to my life.

On a less serious note, I am thankful that my entire family was able to take a trip to St. John this year for Molly's wedding. The memories from that trip will no doubt last a lifetime for all of us. It is where key phrases such as, "If I ain't drinking, I ain't driving," and "I was born to drive in this town," were spawned.  Even more importantly it was a good reminder that the human family is one of the most complex institutions...but a necessary one and one that can truly keep surprising you along the way. Happy Thanksgiving Day all. I hope it was filled with authentic experiences, people and ideas.

Molly:
Hello! Molly here. I am the last one of the sisters to put my paragraphs together for this blog so I guess I’ll start with what is supposed to be my “not so serious” or perhaps even “funny” thing for which I am thankful. Most currently, as in like right at this very moment, and actually over the year in general as well, I am and have been thankful for dun dun dun….my First World Problems. I’m currently stressing over the simple fact that I am the last one to get my paragraphs together. All the other sisters had theirs ready to go yesterday on the day we were originally supposed to publish the blog, but here I am still cramming mine together. However, the reason I am late in writing my paragraphs is because I was too busy playing with my nephew and niece who were visiting from Iowa to make time to sit down and write. I was going to write yesterday morning but we snuggled in bed instead and then we played catch outside before making a trip to LegoLand. I was going to write after we got home from LegoLand but we watched the movie “Inside Out” instead. I was going to write after dinner but then I played a game with my nephew and my niece wanted to “read” me a story and finally my nephew asked me to put him to bed. Could I have made time to write? Absolutely- if I passed up some of those activities or made myself stay up later. Did I end up somewhat stressing myself out because now I am writing at the last minute? Absolutely. But is this a First World Problem? Abso-freaking-lutely. And I am thankful for and would rather deal with my First World Problems any day over some of the real, harsh, sometimes life-threatening struggles other people deal with on a daily basis. As my best friend Naomi constantly reminds me, I am not a freezing, starving refugee in a boat.

Speaking of First World Problems, one other thing that was stressing me out was how in the hell I was going to narrow down everything I was thankful for over the past year enough to write just a couple paragraphs. For that itself I am thankful! What a privilege to have so much I am thankful for that it is difficult to choose just one thing to write about!! I have been thinking about this for awhile now. Should I write about being thankful for my husband, who I often fear doesn’t know just how grateful I am for everything he does because he is not generally a recipient of one of my thank you cards? Should I write about how thankful I am to have a new puppy and a growing family? Should I write about being thankful for everything related to our wedding last May? Should I write about how thankful I am for my coworkers, friends, and family? I almost settled on the last option but then decided it was too cliché. Generally speaking, everyone has coworkers, friends, and family so I am not thankful for the simple fact that I have coworkers, friends, and family. Rather, I am thankful for the fact that I not only have coworkers, friends, and family but that they consistently show me and give me gifts of love. So yeah, I guess I’ll settle on that and say it again: I am thankful for having coworkers, friends, and family that over the past year especially, have given me the gift of love. From looking into our wedding crowd of 75!! friends and family who traveled to a remote island to support us and be there to celebrate our special day to smaller acts of love such as partaking in weekly family dinners with my in-laws, getting a phone call from my mother just to “see how I was feeling,” my daily texts and snap chats from my sisters just because they care and are interested in my life, my husband walking me to my car pretty much every time I leave the house, my father sending me articles he cut out from the newspaper just because he thought I would be interested in reading them, my best friend Naomi driving over an hour just to have dinner with my family who was visiting from Iowa, my friends from CrossFit who text when they think I have missed too many classes, and my coworkers supporting me as a friend not just a colleague. The list could go on and on but the point is, I am thankful to be loved. My sister Kristen and I were just talking this weekend about how some people utilize Tinder nowadays just to get some attention or even to just look for friendship. I am passing no judgment on looking for friendship online, but it did make me think about how many lonely people there are out in the world just walking among us every single day. I am thankful not just because I am not lonely but because I am loved and am given small gifts of love almost every single day.

Anne:

“Serious” – As Amy noted above, I am always so thankful for my relationships. However, I do not want to simply say that I’m thankful for my relationships. My concern is that if I say that phrase repeatedly that it will start to lose its nuance and meaning; it will become cliché. If I am thankful for my relationships, I want to know why and I want to feel it.

This past year, I am thankful that I am better able to communicate my needs and expectations in my relationships because it has helped my relationships flourish even more. This sounds so simple, doesn’t it? That you have to communicate what you want/need in your relationships? Of course you do! However, if you pause to think about it, we have SO MANY implicit expectations in our relationships; we automatically assume the other person knows where we are. And this tendency is only natural as we exist in our own minds, and it is easy to forget that what is in our heads is not readily apparent to others.

Consequently, I am thankful that I learned how to better articulate my needs in my relationships. Here’s an example: I coordinated a community-wide movie event for my job. We were watching the movie UP at Fleur Cinema as an “safe” way to initiate a conversation about grief. I really wanted this event to be a success. In the past, I would have briefly mentioned the event to friends/family, and then I would have waited and hoped that they would say something about coming.  I would have been afraid to impose on them, and so I would hope that they just realize that they needed to come. However, for this particular event, I talked to my family members/friends and I personally invited them. I let them know that the event was very important to me, and I would really love it if they were able to make it. As a result, I had a LOT of my friends and family show up to the event! I had so many people show up that my coworkers even mentioned that I was very fortunate to be supported by so many people. I WAS very fortunate to have their support, and I strongly believe that it was my communication about the importance of the event TO ME that led them to coming to the event.

“Fun” - The “fun” thing that I am thankful for this past year is TGR. (TGR is where I take my aerial and pole classes.) I want to write a more detailed blog post about TGR in the future, but for now, I just want to say that I am SO thankful for TGR.  It’s incredibly fun, I’ve grown stronger both outside and inside because of the classes there, I am able to balance an intense professional career because of the release the classes offer, and I’ve met so many amazing and inspiring people there. I am incredibly thankful that I was led to TGR this past year!

Kristen:
I am thankful for life. To be able to breathe the fresh air and the ever amazing smells of the trees, leaves, grass and freshly poured rain. I am thankful for love and the capacity to think of this four letter word beyond the superficial image of a man and woman standing at an altar. I am thankful for playfulness. For the ability to be 22 years old still be one of the oldest participants of dodgeball at the trampoline park. I am thankful for intimacy. I am thankful for comforting hugs, smiles and touches. I am thankful for the ability to overthink and self-reflect. “What is the meaning of life, better yet, what is the meaning of my life?” I am thankful for the mountains. For the infinite life, peace, beauty and wanderlust they bring to me. I am thankful for music. For the notes I play in sorrow, joy, contentment and anger. I am thankful for suffering. For the days that I come home and question the work that I am doing right now and the qualities that allow me to strive and struggle within its realm. I am thankful for failure and success. Thankful for each one of the small humans that I call my students that make me feel both of those on a daily basis. I am thankful for intellect, debate and discussion. Thankful for long car rides that are filled with the thoughts and opinions of new and old friends. I am thankful for my privilege and being able to recognize my privilege. Thankful for a warm bed, nice clothes, a full belly, and the countless opportunities I have stumbled upon and will continue to stumble upon because of my race, class and background. I am thankful for strong women. For women who run, think and question. I am thankful for Amy Sue Alesch. I am thankful for Jill Ann Finken. I am thankful for Molly Kay Alesch. I am thankful for Anne Rose Alesch. I am thankful for me.

Amy Sue:

I am grateful for the space and time that I've had this year to know myself. I have begun to love and trust myself again-I knew these things had been missing in the past few years and I was not sure how to get to them again. During the past year, I have lived in my own space and have deliberately taken more time for me to be with myself so I have had the spiritual, mental, and physical space to begin to trust, love and know myself again. I have nurtured parts of myself that had been damaged or that I'd let stagnate and wither. Life, like our energies, ebbs and flows and I feel grateful that right now I feel more love and acceptance of myself and my way of being than I have in recent personal history. I feel I have gotten back parts of myself that I like and had been lost...so I am grateful for the pleasant and not so pleasant steps along the way that allowed me the precious time and space to be grateful for my SELF once again.

Have you ever laughed so hard you had tears coming from your eyes and you felt like you might puke? I just had one of those moments the other day...my mom and Anne and I were discussing some ridiculous perception one of us had and exaggerating the story to hilarious levels. I could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. And in that moment, it occurred to me that I was grateful that I still laugh like that. It feels so good to physically laugh and the mental and spiritual joy is like a massage for the soul. I found myself thankful for that moment in time and also for being blessed with people in my life with whom I find myself laughing like a maniac with. When my sisters and I get together, it never fails that there will be at least one of those moments. I am also blessed with friends and a soul equal parts seriousness and joy and have experienced these moments in my every day life. I don't think I can adequately put into words all of the thoughts and feelings I had when I realized how grateful I was for these moments...free, love, joy, cathartic, connecting...these are some of the things that come to mind when I try to analyze a completely spontaneous and beautiful moment. Regardless of the paucity with which words can describe pure joy, I am grateful I still experience these moments and have loves in my life with which to laugh until I cry.


Everyone:
We are also grateful for you, our dear readers. Your feedback and readership is very dear to us. It takes time and energy to read our posts and those are two of our most treasured gifts we have to give to others. Thank you for your support, readership, love and engagement. Writing this blog is one of the things all of the Dissident Daughters is grateful for. Love.