What I learned about ‘normal’ holidays
and their mom (me) made one of those lightning-fast calculations that divorced parents know all too well. (Their feelings plus my feelings minus my feelings because I am not the point multiplied by the weight of a holiday divided by the fact that they’ll only be gone a few hours and we can all have turkey together the next day equals … take them to their dad’s.)
And that’s how my husband and I found ourselves driving around on Thanksgiving with no place to eat.
My ex-husband lives in Indiana. We dropped the kids at his house and went hiking at the Indiana Dunes (the nation’s newest national park!). The views were sweeping and lovely, as long as you don’t mind the occasional monument to industry, and we had the trails to ourselves.
After the hike, we were famished and turned to Google for help.
Me: “CNN has a list of chains open on Thanksgiving. Chili’s?”
Husband: “I’d eat at Chili’s.”
Me: “Bob Evans?” Husband: “I’d eat at Bob Evans.”
Me: “Popeyes?” Husband: “I’d eat at Popeyes.”
Me: “Denny’s?” Husband: “Denny’s! I’d eat at Denny’s.”
And with that, Siri was summoned.
In the end, we landed at a Boston Market in Munster, Indiana, just a stone’s throw from my first newspaper job after college, oddly enough. I drove my husband by the building where I used to work from 4 p.m. to midnight, where my co-workers tried and failed to get me hooked on White Castle, where I worked when my car was stolen from a parking lot in Hobart, where I started to become an adult.
It was a lovely day, in the end. I will remember it forever.
But it was hardly an orthodox celebration.
And I struggled a bit with the Instagram flood of smiling families on front stoops. I let my imagination wander and wonder about the scenes playing out in each of the houses we passed along our drive. I thought a little wistfully about families gathering on couches to watch the Chicago Bears game, something I’ve grown to love doing with my footballloving son.
Not because I was envious. I certainly know I am blessed beyond measure: That my children are healthy and alive and spent the day being fed and loved by others is a gift, not a burden. I never take that for granted.
But I struggle a little at the holidays because it’s impossible to make them feel normal.
Being away from your kids, on a day set aside for family, doesn’t feel normal. Asking Siri where to eat, on a day built almost entirely around eating, doesn’t feel normal. Hiking at a national park, on a day when trails are abandoned and parking lots are empty and visitors centers are closed, doesn’t feel normal.
But I think it’s time to set all that aside.
I think it’s time for a truer approach to this season of gatherings and traditions and shaky new beginnings and bittersweet farewells. When every emotion — joy, grief, longing, worry, gratitude — is multiplied by 10. (Sometimes because of that divorced-parent calculation, sometimes because of an equation made of far different factors.)
I think it’s time to adopt, for all of our sanity, a mantra for this season of complexities: There’s no such thing as normal.
Say it with me, if you’d like: There’s no such thing as normal.
There is delight. There is disappointment. There is regret. There is missing. There is chaos. There is, if you’re lucky, tremendous laughter. There is deep, deep gratitude.
But there’s no normal. Normal isn’t a thing. Normal is a fantasy, a ghost, an illusion. We can stop striving for it. We can make our own rules.
We can enjoy what’s in front of us. What a gift.