Somehow you make it all fit.
On this day that arrives each year, despite global pandemics and ecological disasters and societal tragedies and familial estrangements and many, many unplanned, profound losses…this day…this day filled with a conflicted combination of celebration for so many and shoulder-shuddering grief for so many more…
We can press pause. We can breathe in the reality of life as it has been laid out before us, exactly as it is, and bear witness to what feels both bountiful and unbearable.
The pots and pans that outnumber the stovetop burners you actually have.
The dishes for serving and dining that overcrowd your table that seats six.
“We should have bought that extra leaf for the center,” you mutter to yourself.
Or, if things are different this year...“We’re just fine as a party of two. Or three.”
Because big crowds don’t always mean “better”.
The chairs, especially those on the end, that don’t match and the person who came unannounced...well! Their knees will have to bump the table leg on the corner just a bit.
The political and religious opinions and perspectives that range from one end of the spectrum of human experience all the way to the other. That spectrum that’s present and available to us all to choose where we want to sit.
The water and wine glasses and the bottles and cans and even an IV drip at a hospital bedside.
The airline gate door that closed with you on the right side of it and the luggage that landed safely, even if it belongs to someone else…?!
The highway exit ramp that was totally clear of red taillights as you sailed through.
The tofurkey and gluten-free stuffing sitting right beside the dark meat and mom’s canned yams from Walmart.
The unsolicited comments about babies unborn and ring fingers unadorned and “lifestyle choices” and former partners spoken of in absentia.
The memories that flood your mind as you stir the homemade cranberry sauce on the stove.
The feelings that rise from that place deep inside you that worries and wonders and wishes that things were just a little different this year.
The faces in your minds-eye that aren’t in front of you but you feel in your heart, no matter the miles or the many complicated reasons why.
The chair that holds the space for the one who is missing.
The gratitude and joy for what was and is and will be manage to sneak their way past the sadness and rise up in your throat and well up in your eyes and spill down your cheeks as you somehow
somehow
manage to make it all fit.
*this original post from 2019 has been updated for 2021.