Post Thanksgiving Heartburn

Thanksgiving Day totally sucked. I spent the night by myself and ate an instant noodle dinner. There was no family round-table reunion, no turkey, and very little cause for celebration. I spent most of the night reminiscing better times when I was happier. The holidays are always difficult while so far away from family or lacking an extended one to call my own. The best turkey day I have had thus far in New York City was spent a few years ago. Back then, I was surrounded by the warmth of my ex-lover’s family and the sense of belonging one feels when they, well, belong. There was so much food at all three of the gatherings they took me to. We spoke and burped in English, Spanish, Spanglish, Italian and the warm body language that the holidays evoke. I am not sure which I miss the most, the turkey or the belonging part. I missed him and waited the night in hopes of a telephone call. I missed my mom, her cooking, my father’s antics, and my brothers teasing. I missed it all. I missed family. I missed turkey dinners, the tartness of cranberries, and the sweetness of affection. I missed Thanksgiving.

It is always difficult when one lives in the past. Especially since the present is so different from the long gone. I too often become attached to the systematic, to the past, and patterns of yore that at one point or another made me feel whole. Moving forward, that is living in the present, is by far the hardest of exercises. I do not like change and often welcome it in a shifty distrustful manner. With good reason too because the past, like a hearty Thanksgiving meal, can often rise when lease expected and give you the worst of heartburn or in the metaphorical sense, heart ache. There are no antacid pills for that kind of pain. The only remedy is time, which all too often seems to pass by without an air of immediacy. All that one can do is sit back and digest the saturated recipes of life that leave us full, at times, empty, and always tempted to take another bite.