As this Turkey Thursday draws to a close, I tip my hat to what writing so often does for me: get things out. I vent, wonder, share, laugh, process, and understand. I mourn, appreciate, enshrine and challenge. The powerful difference, for me, between keeping a diary and blogging is the element of connection with others: you. I cannot tell you how many earnestly begun journals I have let wither away over the past twenty-five years. Those with stoic leather covers and others with bright shiny ones, a few with lock and key, one or two in electronic form. I bought them on trips, moved by the destination or the person with whom I adventured. I bought them during low points and high, often at the turn of a new year or similarly nostalgic point in time. I meant to write often, or at least regularly, and a few of my efforts seemed valiant.

But not a one stuck until I figured out that I needed to be writing to someone. Even if I didn't know him or her or them or you. This has stuck, has expanded and fulfilled me in many ways, and I am thankful. Thank you for reading. And for reaching back out to me.

That I had a lovely Thanksgiving with none of the attendant blues I worried might cloud it (there is tomorrow, but I'm trying to stay optimistic) could be attributed to a whole host of inputs: a beautiful day with no gray in sight; a joyous run with my family and thousands of others; the wonderful family I married into; the knowledge and confidence to draw my line in the sand of cooking yesterday, doing what I could while enjoying it rather than pushing myself to do more than that and feel burdened; subdued hormones rather than their horribly mischievous kin.

Certainly all those things would boost anyone but I simply must acknowledge too the power of getting it out. When I wrote a few days back about my ambivalence towards Thanksgiving, I felt as if I'd broken up with those sentiments. Or at least owned and made peace with them. And that's a significant change. A positive one too.

As I head off to sleep, full but not too full, happy to have leftover pie, I again give thanks for all the incredible people and love in my life; for you, the individuals who read what I have to say and who, sometimes, write me to let me know what you think; for my boys and my little cat; even for my dog; and for the love of writing that makes all of it better, or at least better understood.