Two Weeks and a Day...

Eeek a little sore of late, but it always feels just as good as it does bad. Thanksgiving is in two weeks and I couldn't be more excited - sleeping in my own bed, being at home in general, eating the best food in the world and a TON of it... I'm salivating just sitting here typing about it.

On a diferent track - yesterday I thought about how irritating an open mind can be. It means you can't give up on anything - you can accept it, but you can't give up on it. Of course, this means you have to learn to walk away yourself and take responsibility for choosing your own battles. Does that make sense? With an open mind, anything can be explored virtually forever, because there's always a new way of seeing it. The curse here is that even if you are capable of doing so, we sometimes just plain don't have the time for it. I suppose the best way to go through life is to understand as much as you can, regardless of time, but there's always an agenda.

And today I was thinking about childhood. You know John Mayer's song '83? It's about how he wishes his life was more like it was when he was six years old, with superman capes and lunchboxes. Do I wish my life was more like when I was six? I was surprise to easily answer no. If I was only six now, even though I'd be having the time of my life, I wouldn't know it. I wouldn't know as much as I do now, and there would be all those years ahead of me of learning that I don't really feel like reliving. Middle school? No, thanks.

That's kind of a big deal then, the fact that I would rather live at this age than in my childhood oblivion, isn't it? Even if I know I'm not really as happy now as I was then, I'm so much more aware of it. I see so much more going on every day than I ever did at six years old, and it would make it impossible to go back. Even though life was great then - carefree, irresponsible - I never knew how or why. Now that I'm faced with the challenge of giving all that up, I know how to appreciate it.

So admittedly, I'm going home for Thanksgiving to secretly pretend I'm six years old. I'm probably going to wake up around 9 to smell the turkey already in the oven. I'll wear what I slept in until about 3 in the afternoon, watching the ridiculous parade on TV and stealing bits and pieces of all the food that's "FOR LATER!" when my mom's not looking. And I'll be able to sit back after dinner, eat the rest of the bread that everyone left for me, and never ever want to get up again.

But at the same time, it will be better than all the last. My parents won't hold back in the stories they tell us. My siblings and I won't hold back in the stories we tell them. And best of all, we'll all be more thankful than ever just to be there :-)