Thankfulness

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I'm seeing tons of Facebook posts about thankful Canadians being thankful for friends, thankful for family, thankful for friends who become family, thankful for their spouses, thankful for their kids, thankful to live in Canada.

Truth be told, I'm having a little trouble being thankful today. My family doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. It's not that we're opposed to it, it's just that my family doesn't do a great job at family things. The only holidays we really acknowledge are Christmas and birthdays. And in the past few years birthdays boil down to a call or a text. I spend Christmas with my father and his wife; my brother and his wife do their own thing or spend it with my mother.

I've spent this past year trying harder at entertaining and engaging people. I have hosted a brunch, dinners, tea, game nights, a birthday party. I decided to make a celebration out of inviting people and I sent actual invitations. And people come. But what I notice is that if I don't initiate, nothing happens. I don't get invited. And none of those efforts have brought me closer to having any sort of a social life. Today, on Thanksgiving, as I am home with my cat, I find it difficult to see posts of everyone's Thanksgiving with their families and feel thankful for the friends who come when I invite them.

One friend asked me what I was doing for Thanksgiving and I said "nothing". She said "do you want to be doing something?" I said "it's no big deal"and shrugged or something like that. I don't know if that was a passive way of inviting me, but the moment passed and here I am.

And today I feel like there's no point. What's the point of putting myself out there? Sure people may respond but does it really get me any further to building rapport with people? And do I want to engage people who don't engage me back? What's with that???