Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll!
I wanted to take a moment and write out how thankful I am for you guys. I don’t exactly have the most followers on my blog, FB, or Instagram, but I feel like I do have some kind of relationship or connection with the vast majority of you, if not all of you. I know I’m quiet, introverted, and at times, unintentionally (and intentionally) intimidating. My life-long chronic case of RBF helps with that. But I hope you guys know that I do remember you, and I do think of you, and I wish had the balls to say “hi” to you more often. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of you feel similarly in some way, shape, or form about me or other people in your lives. Wherever you are on this Thanksgiving day, I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’re healthy. I hope you’re enjoying yourself to the fullest if you’re in a good season of life. I hope you’re not giving up if this is a hard season. Because there will be an end to the dark tunnel, and there’s always light up ahead.
I love the feel of holidays. I love the feel of different seasons (especially autumn, as some of you may have guessed). I love having an excuse to be happy and celebrate little, silly things with a larger collective. You should see how I deck out my house with decor that matches whatever festivities are going on. But sometimes, it is hard to be happy, even with merriness and cheer all around.
Maybe Thanksgiving is usually a great time for you, a time to have that rare dinner with the whole family. If that’s you, I’m happy for you, and I pray that you’ll continue to cherish each and every family member you have. But maybe Thanksgiving is a hard time for you. Maybe it’s an annual tradition of regretting that you fell into the trap of enjoying all the festivities only to come crashing back down to reality after an explosive fight with that one parent or sibling or child.
But I want you to know that you’re going to be okay. God has a plan for you. I know it sucks to have a special day (and a holiday, of all things) ruined by the very people you’re supposed to be thankful for, but you’ll survive this round just like you survived the rest.
I remember this time last year, I was healing from my egg retrieval and was anxiously looking toward my first embryo transfer and all the uncertainties that would come with it. Still, I wanted to try and get my family together for Thanksgiving. Ever since I became a Christian all the way back in 2010, I made it my mission to try and get my family, and my parents in particular, to all get along. It’s always a lot of logistical gruntwork and often a lot more emotional pain, but I still try. So, even though I was physically in pain and exhausted from my procedure, I tried to uphold the tradition of shepherding all the hissing, clawing, and stubborn cats (ie my immediate family members) and gathering them all at the dinner table. I’m embarrassed to admit that I look back at most of my family get-together attempts with a certain amount of self pity. Poor Ann. She actually thought she could pull it off and have a great, picture-perfect Thanksgiving. When will she learn?
When will I learn? Well, I learned that day, exactly a year ago, that maybe there’s a limit to how much heartache I can take from my family. Once we had gathered for brunch (my mom is very picky about what time she eats dinner, so Thanksgiving dinner is out of the picture entirely, and I have to pick a brunch time for us all) at Denny’s (neither my mom nor I were in any way physically able to make a huge dinner that year, and I won’t delude myself into hoping that the thought of cooking a Thanksgiving meal would even enter my dad’s head), we sat down and started to chat. I had bought a cheap, little turkey doll at Target and brought it as a centerpiece for the Denny’s table. I thought it was cute, and my mom seemed to like it, which is always nice. I was really happy that I had managed to get everyone together and done the right thing even though I was so busy and anxious with IVF going on. I was hopeful that my efforts would not be in vain.
But, of course, things slowly devolved just a little bit at a time, whether it was my mom getting frustrated with my dad and getting her emotions out by shaking me roughly then me snapping at her to stop and her feeling bad and patting my arm over and over again in apology like I was some kind of lap dog. Or my dad showing up to Denny’s looking like he wanted to kill, slaughter, and eat the whole family because it was a later hour than when he usually ate lunch and he gets hangry like no other. Why could he just not eat a snack before coming, I have no idea. But, well, he’s diabetic, so maybe his stomach was off. I don’t know. All I know is that I was trying to do something that is excruciating for me, which is to smile and chat with everyone about dumb stuff no one really, at the end of the day, cares about. I just wanted everyone to get along and have a good Thanksgiving dinner lunch even though my dad was growling at the waiters on a day we’re supposed to show grace and goodwill toward men and complaining loudly about how Denny’s was so “fucking packed” and how the food still wasn’t coming out even though he’d ordered ten whole minutes ago.
Throughout all that, believe it or not, I still was hopeful. Call it years of growing tough skin, but I was still keeping my head up and savoring the smiles on my mom’s and stepmom’s faces. I was even fully enjoying the small talk when all of a sudden, my father raised his head, glared me in the eye, and said, “Next year, let’s go to the Chinese buffet down the street. Denny’s sucks. It’s too busy.”
That was, by far, NOT the worst thing my dad has ever said to me. But something about it just broke me. Maybe it was the fact that he knew full well that I was going through IVF and that he, unlike my mom, had more familiarity with the struggles of IVF because he has other close family members who conceived through IVF. Maybe it was the fact that my body was already breaking physically, which made it that much easier for my spirit to break too. Maybe it was the fact that despite the physical and emotional rollercoasters I’d already taken so many spins on through IVF and infertility, I still had done the job that parents should do, which is to put my own baggage aside, pull on my adult attitude, and try to get the family together. Maybe it was just a small pebble that landed on a mountain of immature, tactless, and very-not-parent-like things my dad has said to me over the years.
Whatever it was, it broke me. Though it takes a lot to render me speechless, I was totally speechless in that moment. I was just a deer in the headlights for that split second, staring at my dad across the dinner table, unable to process what he’d just said. And then something squeezed inside of me, and I was embarrassed because I could feel it pulling at my face, scrunching it up, and I was horrified because I was actually about to cry. I never cry! And at the dinner table of all places.
And I knew that if I suddenly burst into tears, it would ruin the whole atmosphere. There would be a shocked, “What’s the matter?” from all the ladies and that awkward, silent shifting in the seats from the men. And I’d be just crying and not able to point the finger at my dad, who would just cross his arms and look the other way because he won’t ever be man enough to simply apologize. All the work and effort I’d put in to make this day a good one would be totally undone by my own hand. Most of all, though, if I broke down and got angry (because the anger is sure to follow if I allow myself to be so uncontrollably sad), I would yell at my dad. And if I yelled at my dad, I would ruin the whole point of the day, of Thanksgiving. I would not be showing mercy and goodwill to my own father. I would not be exemplifying the behavior that Christ would have me set. Jesus would not want me to pick up my plate of mashed potatoes and fling it into my father’s face the way that every fiber of my being wanted to (although I’m sure Jesus would be sympathetic and understand why I wanted to do such a thing). I would ruin Thanksgiving with a molten wave of rage, all while hypocritically screaming at my dad that he’s ruining Thanksgiving with his crappy attitude.
So, I bowed my head for what felt like several moments but was really only a split second, sucked in a deep breath, and looked away from my dad while continuing a conversation with my mom and stepmom. My dad could clearly see he’d hurt me, but as expected, he didn’t apologize. I mean, what kind of Korean, alpha male would he be if he actually apologized? All the Thanksgiving turkeys in America would burst into demonic flames and set the country on fire if he did such a thing, surely. He did try to smile a bit more, though, and actually talk to the people sitting next to him. But I couldn’t really look at him for the rest of the lunch because I no longer had the strength to look at someone who’d hurt me so willingly and so deeply. Even after the lunch ended, I felt more distant from my dad.
You know what’s really sad, though? It’s the fact that I know, without even asking, that many of you will be able to relate to this story on some level. Which brings me back to the point of this post: I want you to know that it’ll be okay. For me, that awful lunch was the beginning of me creating new and healthier boundaries with my dad. Up until then, I think I excused more of the hurts he dealt me than was sustainable for me to. After that moment, I began to realize that I have tried my utmost best to love my father and still will continue to try to be the best daughter that I can be. But there’s a limit to how far I can deepen my relationship with him if he’s not trying equally hard.
It sucks to go through sucky times, especially when all the stores are covered in sparkles and glitter, exciting sales are going, holiday parties abound, and everyone else’s families seem like they’re actually sane. But God can, and will, bring good out of bad, and even if we have to go through the clown show that holidays often turn out to be, we’ll grow as people and learn from the mistakes that others deal upon us so that we don’t do the shameful thing of dealing that same mistake upon others. I know that whatever conflicts and arguments that explode over the course of the next month or so over the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables, we can still at least try to hold our crap together, love one another, even if that love is not deserved, and be thankful for at least one thing in our lives, because there is always at least one thing to be thankful for.
For me, I’m thankful that I have my writing and my husband. And even though Thanksgiving meals can be explosive, I’m supremely grateful that I even have a meal because there are many, many people out in the world who only have the crappy family and then hunger on top of it. And I’m thankful for you guys, not just because you read my writing but because of the relationships we share, whether it’s a deep one or just a brief one we had back in college. Thank you, guys, for your friendship. Thank you, guys, for your support. I hope you guys are all well.
Happy Thanksgiving.
On a related note, I’ve decided to plug my upcoming book more as we approach the launch date, which will be summer of 2025! Today, I’m sharing with ya’ll an excerpt from chapter 9, titled “Thanksgiving.” The chapter does, indeed, take place on Thanksgiving and involves a family spat.
The context is that James, the main character of the book, has been invited to Thanksgiving dinner by Heri, his little sister. He really doesn’t want to be there, though, doubly so because it hasn’t been long since he was born into the Flowering, a surreal and dangerous dimension that only select humans enter every time they fall asleep.
Those of you who attended my virtual book event a year or two ago might remember this scene as it was the one I did a reading of. But reading it yourself is always a different experience from hearing an author reading, so I hope you’ll give it a proper read!
Click here for the excerpt.
Click here for the book synopsis.