Giving Thanks.

Thanksgiving was two days ago. Or three, depending on how you log time. As far as I'm concerned, it's not tomorrow until you've gone to sleep. So since I haven't gone to bed yet from it being Saturday, that means that two days ago was Thursday. Thanksgiving.Two days ago.
    I'm left here wondering what in the hell I have to give thanks for.
    Yes, I'm aware that things could always be worse. Believe me, I'm a professional pessimist (realist? but with a pessimistic leaning). I know that things can always be worse than they currently are. I could be sitting here with one eye or a leg and a half. Or with a tumor (though I frequently think I may have a brain tumor, or at least an aneurism in the works) or severe schizophrenia. Or with leprosy and a cardboard box to live in. If I'm lucky.
   No, I'm that bad off. I have a roof that also comes equipped with heat (for a price) and all of my appendages, save the very tip of my right pinky. I have three cats that at least stick around (I'm sure the food has most to do with it). I have enough of a grip on my mental being that I'm not going to jump off of a bridge or climb the nearest bell tower with a shotgun. I have some family floating around this country. And I have the potential to fix everything else that isn't what it should or could be.
   Yet, as the pessimist that I am, I am left here wondering what else I have outside of the basic things that everyone else I know has as well. What I may have that I can truely be thankful for. And I can't find much. I'm not looking for any sort of pity-party, nor am I looking for any advice or anything from this. I'm not looking for attention. If anything, I'm trying to avoid it (one of the only reasons I'm not making this a 'private' blog is because a few people actually bitched at me the last time I did that.. though it does surprise me that people want to read my blatherings. You wanna know the shit in my head? Well, then here). And that is what has made me what I am now. A negative, unhappy person that no one can take for more than a little while. I wear people down. I drain their spirits. And I don't mean to. This is just the way I've been since I can remember existing.
   Yeah. Thanksgiving. I'm not really much for holidays, and have never been gung-ho about any of them except for maybe Halloween. Because a holiday that is all about dressing stupid and ending up a with bag of candy, yeah, I'm all about it. I LOVE candy. Give it to me, baby. But the rest of them... meh. Whatever. I'm not religious, so Christmas and Easter are simply symbolic holidays. And I'm not super-patriotic. I like fireworks, but that's mostly because I also have a bit of the pyromaniac streak in me, and settting things on fire is always fun.
   Even though I really could give a rat's ass about something like Thanksgiving, there is something to be said about the fact that this holiday centers around being with those you care about most and those who also care about you (and of course stuffing your faces like the gluttonous creatures that human beings are...). You never notice exactly how alone you really are until a day like this. When you spend the day doing nothing, and no one else even notices. No calls from family, 'friends', nothing. Sure, I got an obligatory invitation to go with my mother and her family to visit my grandmother in North Carolina (who it seems also forgot my birthday), but this invitation wasn't made until it was clearly too late for me to get off work to make the trip. This has happened with my mother at least 5 times, and no matter how many times I remind her that yes, my job may not be glamourous but still requires two-weeks notice for time off, she never remembers. She's not stupid. She just doesn't care enough to think about it ahead of time. And this is an ongoing theme in my life.
  
       So here's what's on my mind this Thanksgiving... I have a job that has no respect or loyalty to me, a job that doesn't care about me at all though I've given them 5 years of my life with only the request that I have Tuesday off (which never happens). This was a job I used to love that has sucked the vitality from my soul. Every week when I go in I feel more disposable and unwanted and unneeded.
     I have a family that forgets that I am part of them. I see them once a year. And when they do see me they do nothing but criticize me; everything from  my hair to my nose ring to my job... they think lowly of me. I also don't know them well anymore, because there's been a great distance between me and the rest of them for years. None of them have attempted to close that canyon. The maternal half of my family has simply moved on. My mother is remarried and has two teenaged sons with my stepfather. They own a house (that I never lived in) and go on vacations (that I'm not a part of). She just has her little family unit now, and it's just unfortunate that I came about before everyone finally got their shit together.
   I started this year with four people I was close to. Four people who I allowed into my life for real. Two of them were closer to me than the other two... The only reason two weren't as close as the others was because of situational circumstances- one seems to always be at home with her boyfriend, the other moved from Athens. Of the two that were closest, one was a friend for shorter of an amount of time than the other three, but who really needed a friend at the time I entered her life. I didn't judge her based on the crap people were saying, and soon found it all to be untrue. We had much in common, and she made me feel at ease and gave me someone to talk to about anything. Then she disappeared. The other was a friend for more than a year and a half, who then crossed that line of friendship to become 'more than friends'. At his urging (and against my better judgement) I decided to give that a shot. And it bit me in the ass eight months later when he turned his back on me as well. He failed to inform me that he never wanted anything more than a very casual situation. He was not looking for any sort of relationship or anything that could ever be more than temporary or extremely flexible. So of the four people who meant the most to me in January, by August two of them had broken my heart. And they both had moved on like I never existed. Losing the stronger half of your support center is never good, especially when you've already got self-esteem as flaky as a chunk of mica.
    All of these things sullied my year. And shoved me into a deeper depression than I've been in a while. I had my share of hopeless days. But...
   So yeah. After thinking on all of this, I just am thankful that I still have at least some sort of drive to keep trying. I'm thankful that I haven't completely given up when it seems that everything else has given up on me. I'm thankful for the knowledge that there really are some decent people out there who do (and will) love me. And all I can do now is work to pull myself up to where I want to be. It can and will happen. I just need a bit of a fresh perspective and a change of pace or scenery. I may also need to cut extraneous communication with a particular person for a while so I can heal and move on (since on that front I've done all I can do, and nothing has changed... time to give up), not forever, just time enough to mend my heart and be able to want nothing more than a friend from them. If anything, this year is nearing it's end, and a fresh start can happen with the new year, if I don't get a jump on it. Things will be good. I will make them that way.