and the fight goes on

thanksgiving was much less painful than i thought it would be. just as i thought my birthday would be easier and was worse, this was the opposite. i did the entire meal, and it went really well. the saddest part was that my mom realized that she wasn't part of the preparations, and i could tell that had a huge impact on her.

all of my memories of thanksgiving are wrapped up in fighting with my mother as she panicked and stressed out about the meal. preparing it basically on my own (almost the entire meal), i realized that it didn't need to be as hard as she made it. i also realized that we've been martyring my mom these last few months, and that this memory of her fighting with us over the smallest, most asinine things is really the mom i remember. the way she is now, all sweet and funny and child-like is not the real her. it's so nice not to have to deal with that level of tip-toeing around just to try and avoid a stressful situation. but at the same time, those moments where my mom wasn't her usual type-a self or weighed down by burdens, self-imposed or otherwise,
were also good. i just wish there were more of them.

so, in the future when i make thanksgiving (which was a personal triumph), i won't panic. now that i've done it, which is frankly a milestone only to be attributed to my mom's brain tumor status, it's not so daunting. everyone will just have to be patient, because really, there's no rushing a turkey. it's done when it's done, and as long as you're fine with that, the rest will just fall into place.