As I write this it is Thanksgiving.

As I write this I feel thankful.

I also feel terrible.

I know that there’s a (digital) stack of essays still waiting to be graded from two weeks ago. I know that there’s a pile up of discarded ideas and old summaries that I ought to work on for this website. I know that there’s a pretty descent novel manuscript that I just cannot get back around to editing because my brain can’t handle responsibilities of refining writing, creating lesson plans, instituting parenting strategems and maintaining our basic household functions.

I feel like a failure, like a pretender and a clown. I feel like I’m clogged up in emotions and anxieties and wants and wishes. I feel guilty and ashamed to be dwelling on my feelings and my desires when you, my sons, are growing up all around me. Why am I trying to do stuff for myself when you need things? Shouldn’t you get love, affection, support, structure? Shouldn’t that be my top priority and I be able to release all the shame and guilt and wanting to write?

It feels like the wanting to do other things is selfish. And yet giving up on doing them feels awful too. It feels like co-signing the notion that I’m only one thing: rather than a whole and complex person. It feels like bottling up all my humanity and putting on a mask of plastic passivity. It feels like admitting that this project is a waste of time and gigabytes…and so are my ideas…and so am I.

Yes, I’m being melodramatic. Yes, I’m overanalyzing every aspect of the situation. Yes, there’s room for both me being your parent and me being myself. But it’s also true and natural that there’s a lot of emotional baggage that comes with all of that.

This is the hard part.

And this is why I am grateful.

A lot of the time when we say goodnight and I ask you what you’re thankful for, we name people we love and things that were fun. We’re always grateful for Momma, and eachother, and we give regular shout outs to grandparents, Pokemon, Frozen stories, Mini the cat, spaghetti sauce, bath bombs and butterflies.

We don’t usually name the things that go wrong, or the people who frustrate us. We don’t say we’re grateful for having a huge upset or tantrum. We don’t say we’re thankful for the mean words at school, or the swift rushes to denigrate ourselves. We don’t sit around the Thanksgiving table to say thank you for cruelty, or for war, or for the burnt vegetables.

But those things all help us in their own ways. We learn how to handle our emotions. We see the beauty and resilience of who we are despite the anger of ourselves and others. We learn to be kind, to seek peace, and to laugh at mistakes.

Roundglass Punjab has had a rough go of it in the top division of Indian soccer. It has been hard to score goals and harder still to hold leads. They sit at the bottom of the table and have the worst goal differential in the league.

They don’t like losing. But they are getting better, more refined and more able to compete each and every time they play. Punjab won’t put together a championship campaign this time around, but they will have the season they need to, learn from it, and be better because of it.

I’m grateful that I’m having a hard time writing, it makes me remember what I really like: doing it…not meeting a goal or hitting a deadline, just writing.

I’m grateful that I’m dealing with a wide array of emotions and thoughts when it comes to doing what I want and being who I want to be. It will help me find the balance I need to live.

The world is full of hard stuff these days. There’s a lot to mourn, to fight, to critique and to dislike. But we can learn from it, we can grow from it, we can find what we want in the inverse of what we don’t like. So, like it or not, we should be grateful for the hard stuff.