I’m too far from home, all alone on the road.

My current dirty little secret is the way in which I’ve been dreading Thanksgiving.

Now I know that for many this would hardly be a secret, let alone a dirty little one. Tons of people regard Thanksgiving (and the year-end holidays it kind of ushers in) as a source of nothing but stress and undesired obligation. But see, I really do like my family, really do like spending time with them, and therefore generally look forward to times like Thanksgiving when we get to gather together, eat a lot, drink a lot, and just relax and have a good time.

But this year... God, not this year. I can’t believe it’s already right around the corner, and the mere idea of it fills me with a sense of such uneasiness that I just want to run home, fall into my bed, pull the covers up over my head, and stay there until...until what? Spring? Summer? Middle age?

And that’s just it. Try as I might, I can’t figure out these feelings. What am I dreading? And without knowing that, how can I even begin to know what to do about it? Is it the fact that year after year, the adage of “you can never go home again” just feels more and more accurate? Is it the idea of spending so much time with people with whom my relationship has changed so much since the days when I really looked forward to these holidays? Is it the idea of celebrating anything at all, in this time when celebrating is pretty much the last thing I feel like doing?

I know that I have a million things to be thankful for. So it’s not like the ultimate point of the holiday is lost on me.

I guess it’s just that the things I'm not thankful for spend so much time on my mind these days, that the idea of having to push them out of there in an attempt to actually be thankful seems utterly exhausting. And I’ve been so exhausted as it is.