Between me and my family, our schedules did not line up this year for us to meet up for Thanksgiving. I was fine with this. I had hosted my parents the past couple of years to great success. And I had just completed a transition into a new job, which had left me drained and in need of rest. Not only was I fine with an unscheduled Thanksgiving Day to myself, but I was actually looking forward to it.

This unscheduled holiday to myself was ultimately not meant to be, however. As Thanksgiving approached, I received two invites and was eventually booked for Thanksgiving dinner with a friend’s parents and a Friendsgiving with another group of friends the following day. In the days leading up to the holiday weekend, I felt excited. I had just moved to my current city a little less than three years ago. The first year I moved, I had been concerned with the basics, such as lodging, and employment. The second year, I started to branch off and build my social circle. This past Thanksgiving was the first where I had plans that made my life feel full in a way that was unforced and natural. I was excited to spend my first holiday with these new friends that represented this new phase of my life.

I walked to meet my friend on Thursday who lives in an apartment just a fifteen-minute walk south from me. The wind was biting and nasty, but the cold also felt nice and crisp and cleansing on my face. I waiting for her outside the entrance of her apartment. I watched the dead leaves in the trees dance as the wind whipped through the branches. I fell into a daydream, reminiscing about a messy drunken Thanksgiving Day not long ago. Back then there wasn’t a firm boundary between socializing and self-destruction for me. I spent time with people I shouldn’t while perusing activities that I knew would lead to conflict. As I waiting for my friend outside, I felt genuinely grateful for the lessons I had learned since then. The changes I had made to the way I conduct my own life had been difficult to implement. However they had slowly but surely paid dividends.

As I was deep in thought, my friend popped out of her front door and started loading up her car with bags. We drove up to the suburbs. Her parents’ place was spacious and filled with artwork from their travels around the world. It was a genuinely lovely space, but I did feel confined by how nice everything was. It made me feel a bit like an intruder in a foreign land. Regardless of my level of comfort with the surroundings, I was still grateful to them and their hospitality.

The next night was a decidedly less formal affair. It was a potluck vegan dinner with friends gathered around a kitchen island with beers and half-baked opinions. We laughed and teased each other and played video games. When it was a little after midnight and the bottle of soju was dry, we all parted ways in the dark and took separate trains back home.

My Thanksgiving was eclectic, but true to the spirit of the holiday it allows me a time to reflect and feel gratitude towards my life.