This Year We Learned to Re-Evaluate the Meaning of Family
I knew I would miss going home for the holiday. What I didn’t expect was the relief.
This year, for the first time ever, I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving. I didn’t brave the overnight Amtrak and subject myself to the germs of hundreds of travelers; didn’t wake up in the Cleveland suburbs to watch the parade and drink vanilla-flavored coffee from my mom’s Keurig. I didn’t get to spend two hours with her and my sister, squealing over the cute pups in the National Dog Show. I didn’t spend Black Friday pushing through a thick crowd of people in the electronics section of Walmart or the following Saturday decorating my mom’s Christmas tree with ornaments dating back to my infancy in the late ’80s.
This Thanksgiving, I also didn’t get misgendered. I didn’t have to complain when someone called me the wrong pronouns, and I didn’t have to listen to my mom explain that really, people are trying hard. I didn’t have to sit still on the couch wincing, wondering if my mom put as much energy into defending me to the extended family as she did defending the family to me. I didn’t have to hear anyone talking about the election. I didn’t have to look in the face of anyone who has voted to harm me and people like me over and over and over again.
