Thanksgiving

Last night my dad told me he has Parkinson's disease.  For someone who talks a lot and writes a lot, I am perhaps oddly usually at a loss for words when it comes to anything intensely personal in my life. This was no different.  I knew as soon as he said, "Do you have a moment?" he was going to say something serious, and my ability to find words disappeared.  What I did have is a hug.  I'm good at hugs. 

A lot of advances have been made in recent years in Parkinson's, and my dad is on the right medication now and doing great.  This post isn't about Parkinson's.  In fact, perhaps contrary to initial impressions, this post isn't about anything sad.  This post is about being thankful.  I am so thankful for my parents, and I love them with all my heart.  I am thankful for their love, their support, their unending belief in me and my success even in the face of obstacle after obstacle.  I am thankful that my parents, my brother, and I are all at home -- the home I grew up in -- today for the first time in over 5 years.  I am thankful that while I'm home in Indiana for Thanksgiving, a re-connected childhood friend of mine has opened her New York home to my didn't-want-to-travel fiancé -- who was otherwise planning a solitary day by himself in our apartment.  I am thankful that when I wouldn't stop leaping around our family room as a 4- or 5-year-old, my parents enrolled me in gymnastics and ballet and let me take my passion for dance as far as I wanted -- a passion that fills my soul, that I indulge every day of my life, and that I can't imagine my life without. 

As I sit down at their grand piano to play The Piano Guys' version of Can't Help Falling In Love, which I taught myself over the past few weeks in my apartment on the piano they got me a couple Christmases ago, I am thankful that my parents encouraged me to take piano lessons as a child with an excellent teacher and that my mom helped me with my practice every day, always letting me find my own love for the music and the artistry of it.  As I have a discussion at dinner with my parents about the neurons in octupuses' (yes, octopuses, not octopi -- it's not of Latin origin) brains, I am thankful that my parents put me in a school that encouraged my intellectualism and told me it was cool to be a nerd, not something to hide.  As I write this, I am thankful for my dad's biweekly emails a couple years ago repeatedly declaring, "Start a blog!" -- for it has allowed me to deepen my love of writing and critical thinking, forced me to engage intellectually and emotionally every day with the world around me, and allowed me to express myself more precisely and more in depth than I have other outlets for.

I am thankful that while a scroll through Facebook tells me so many people are indulging their bitterness and anger and resentment and other negative feelings about the state of our country's politics, I have a wonderful family full of positive light and love.  And hugs.  I love my family, and I am so thankful for them. 

I hope everyone reading this has something just as wonderful to be thankful for, today and every day.

Happy Thanksgiving.