New Years Day, 2003 -

New Years Day, 2003 - I thought about leaving you with the Thanksgiving piece I wrote last year. I was pretty happy with it, and it kind of summed up how I really feel about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has seemed like the turning of the new year for me - the time when I reflect on the past year's agonies and flubs and successes, and look forward to the next year. Much more so - for me anyway - than New Years' Eve, which is more decompression from Christmas than anything.

I remember each Thanksgiving in the last 17 years - the giddiness of feeling like I was on the edge of something big in 1986, confident in my ability to pull it all together in '87, shell-shocked and depressed and contemplating the implosion of my radio career in '88, crazy in love in '89, a harried but happy but broke newlywed in '90, a new dad digging out of deep snowdrifts in '91, broke and on the brink of eviction with two kids and another on the way in '92, in a new house in '93...wondering how long my marriage would last in '98, being able to answer the question "not long at all" in '99...

...and today. I sat for a while by the Cathedral of St. Paul, looking down Summit over downtown Saint Paul. The giddy, heady uncertainty of the thanksgivings of my first years as an adult, the throat-clutching terror of my divorce-era holidays, and the weary relief of my first thanksgivings as a divorced dad...well, little bits of all of them are still there. But there's the emerging sense that my life really is mine, and that I'd better get on with it.

To last year's litany, I should add the throat-clutching insecurity about the economy and my employment which, within a month, became fully justified. If anything, I have more to be thankful about this year: that I got through four months of unemployment and five more of drastic underemployment, in one piece; a new job; opportunities; relative stability.

It's a new year for me, again; as I noted last year, all the big changes in my life seem to hinge on the Thanksgiving season, good or bad. This year seems to be no exception - this year, it seems to be a good thing. So far.

And for that, I'm deeply thankful.

And as I said last year, I'm thankful for all of you. When this blog started, I got 7-8 visitors a day - friends, relatives, "car crash" spectators. The Garrison Keillor flap and the subsequent Instalanches pushed me up to around 200 visitors a day on average. Today, a typical weekday brings 4-500 of you to the site; it's flattering, humbling, challenging, and more fun than I'd ever imagined it being. Thank you all.

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I certainly am.

Posted by Mitch at November 27, 2003 09:09 AM