Thanksgiving used to mean family, feasting, and a trip to the theater.

Back in the good old days, when my parents were the young idiot republicans buying what the billionaires were selling, they lived in a very different economy that we kids couldn’t appreciate.

After 40 years of trickle down economics, I’m raising children in a very different world.

Instead of visiting grandparents and aunts and uncles and Southern feasting, I’m home alone, considering just dropping all contact with the outside world until I feel like humans are worth the hassle again.

Instead of Dad treating the whole family to a movie in the theater for $50, including all the popcorn, I’m streaming Disney+ and glad my boys are visiting their surviving grandparents with their Dad.

They get to have the family and the fun, and I get to have three blissful days of just being me.

No expectations. No needs to put before my own.

No drama unless I allow it.

And I do not. Not today.

Today I am thankful for my amazing husband and our beautiful happy clever boys getting to grow up without being immersed in a society telling them they are wrong on every level and never enough.

I am thankful for my education and the time I have to develop my skills and learn anything I want.

I am thankful I forgave my Dad before he died and that our last words to each other were of love.

I am thankful I don’t feel a need to blame everyone for my feelings anymore.

I am thankful I can face my mistakes without beating myself up for making them.

I am thankful I can love my family without needing attention from them anymore.

I am thankful I found my light again.

I am thankful I got to see Pink on the last day of her tour, and hear her daughter sing with her on stage.

I’m thankful I can see myself and my life more clearly than ever before.

I am thankful I found peace, again.