A Love Letter For Anyone Choosing To Spend Thanksgiving Away From Family This Year đ€
'For anyone choosing not to be with their family this Thanksgiving, I hope you know this: You are not alone.'
Welcome to the Collective World X Thought Catalog Newsletter. Collective World is a one-of-a-kind creative network powered by the minds and voices behind The Thought & Expression Company. Weâre so glad youâre here.
Callie Byrnes is a writer and publisher at Thought Catalog and Collective World. Today, Callie is sharing these soothing words for anyone who is choosing to spend Thanksgiving without their family.
Holidays can be difficult for people who are estranged from their familiesâespecially holidays where families seem to be the centerpiece, such as Thanksgiving. It can make you feel adrift, an island of your own, lost and alone.
But for anyone choosing not to be with their family this Thanksgiving, I hope you know this: You are not alone.
On holidays like this, weâre made to believe that if we donât have a family to spend it with, then we donât have anybodyâbut thatâs just blatantly untrue. As cliche as it may sound, we get to choose our own families. Sometimes thatâs the people we were born connected to, and sometimes thatâs the people we meet along the wayâbut the most important thing to remember is that you get to choose. No one is entitled to a place in your heart or in your life.
The truth is, if youâre choosing not to be with family this Thanksgiving, thereâs probably a reason, and itâs probably valid. So often people will tell us to bury our own feelings for the sake of everyone else; so often we let ourselves believe that theyâre right. But family doesnât get a free pass to treat us badly, and we donât have to put up with specific behaviors just to appease others. Others may tell you otherwise, but Iâm telling you this now: Itâs okay to put yourself first.
But just know itâs okay to be sad. Itâs okay to feel like youâre missing out on something. Itâs okay to mourn that space in your heart that feels empty, abandoned. Itâs even okay to miss your family, even if you know youâre better off away from them. Life is too messy to fit perfectly into one boxâyou can feel resentful and sad and relieved and heartbroken and nostalgic all at once. And no matter what anyone tells you, thereâs nothing wrong with that.
So grieve if you must. But I hope you also remember to be proud of yourselfâfor choosing to uphold your own boundaries, for doing what is necessary to protect your own peace. You might be criticized for your choices (both from people who know the situation and from those who donât), but the truth is that no one can ever truly understand until theyâre the ones in the situation. At the end of the day, youâre doing the best you can with the resources that you have, and you absolutely have to do what you believe is best for you.
So maybe you wonât be spending this Thanksgiving with the people others expect you to. Maybe you donât have plans at all. Maybe this holiday season wonât go the way you hoped it might. But just because you may not have plans with loved ones on this specific day doesnât mean you donât have loved ones to spend your time with on all the other days of the year. Those moments are important, too; those people are precious to you, even if they arenât blood-related, so hold onto them dearly.
And if youâre choosing not to be with family this Thanksgiving, remember this: This is just one day of the year. It will pass. There are better days waiting for you in the future.
For more from Callie, follow her on Instagram.
I really needed this. Thank you so much. đ»