Shopping

I have written before about how Thanksgiving is the red headed cross-eyed stepchild of the family of holidays.  I'm a little irked about the whole opening stores up during Thanksgiving thing as half the fun of Black Friday is dragging your ass out of bed at ungodly hours.  It is bragging rights really and if you go right from the turkey to the shopping I am so not impressed.  Now, going from the turkey to bed THEN getting up to brave the weather and the crowds...that's 'Merican, bitchez.

I don't know that I will be buying too terribly much on Black Friday anyways this year.  Partly because there is nothing advertised that appeals to me.  And partly because I am broke as fuck.  OK, mainly because I am broke as fuck.  I am not using credit cards anymore for a variety of reasons (mainly because I am broke as fuck and don't wanna get broker) so Christmas is cash this year.  Which really, probably should have been happening all along anyways but there is probably a reason I didn't go into finance.  Mostly because I really like to torture myself at work so I go for the high stress, low paying jobs like working in a bar,  or a day care, or being a therapist at a mental health agency.  And honestly, there is not much difference between the three most days...

I digress.  I am refusing to go out shopping on Thanksgiving.  I have way too much wine to drink and I refuse to cut it short!  Plus there is pie.  I just finished the Whole30, and goddammit I am making really poor food choices that day!  Even if I will feel like I am 90 years old the next day, just in time for me to get all the Christmas decorations out and put them all up.

Yes, Thanksgiving, I have not forgotten that the whole point of you is gluttony and possibly apoplexy. Or wait...isn't it celebrating one of the last gestures of goodwill towards the native tribes before we forcibly removed them from their homes and into generations of confusion and despair?  You know...kinda like the big businesses that are exploiting the workers who rely on these jobs because the economy tanked because of poor financial choices of the very big businesses who are now telling these workers to shut up and be grateful to have a job because you know the economy sucks and we are saving you from yourself by giving you a job...in a remarkably similar fashion to when we told these native tribes that we were going to change their savage ways and save them from themselves?

Guess its not so un-American after all.  And also, maybe I should have gone into finance.  But I don't want that to be my America.  And I can't fathom ruining anyone else financially but myself.  So I'll stay a therapist.  And stay home and drink my wine and wait till Friday to spend money I don't have.

At least I get to do it with my family.

16

Dear Elizabeth,

Holy Fuck.  You are the same age I was when I had you now.

I look at you and I see so much potential it brings tears to my eyes.  You are truly a fantastic human being and the fact that I have not totally fucked you up beyond all recognition is a testament to who you are as a person.  The odds were against us...young, unwed mother who still had to finish growing up herself.  Systems that were in place to allegedly help but that ended up trying to drag me down.  Haters and doubters, some in my own family, who were convinced that we would fall flat on our faces and were just waiting to point and say "I told you so".

They are still waiting.

Some people look at teen mothers and think, "Oh boy.  What a mistake."  That, my love, you never were.  You were never an inconvenience or a burden.  You were the one thing that saved me from myself.  Because of you, I was forced to become a better person.

We have had our fights.  Good Lord, we have had our fights.  There have been some doozies...but...There has never ever been a time when I regretted you.  Ever.  Every single person that I talk to about you thinks the world of you.  They all see you for the amazing person you are.  You are beautiful inside and out.  Don't ever forget that.

There will come times in your life when you won't feel beautiful.  When society will tell you you aren't (insert adjective) enough; when guys will reject you for whatever reason, when you get into a fight with your parents, your friends bicker with you, you have a rough day at work...but please please please promise me that you will always remember that you are so much more than you are feeling at those times.  That life has its ups and downs, but that you are always strong enough to climb the hills.

And remember very hard:

You are my sunshine.
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are gray.
You'll never know dear
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.

Love,
Mamacakes