'Twuz Two Nights After Thanksgiving

2:12 AM

You know those nights where you sit up contemplating your life, reviewing your life choices, and overthinking every decision you’ve ever made?

Psh…you do? Psh…that’s weird. You should really try doing something more constructive with your time. Like golf. You should try golf!

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas Season is upon us! Isn’t it a bit strange that Christmas gets a whole “season”? You don’t hear people talk about the “Thanksgiving Season” or the “Fourth of July Season” or the “Labor Day Season”. But Christmas gets a season and it’s wonderful and I’m not complaining. Just observing.

This Thanksgiving was a bit strange for me for two equally important reasons: Reason one - I’m in London and Reason two: …there isn’t a reason two, but wouldn’t it be fun if there was? Let’s all imagine that there was a reason two. On my count …three, two, one *pause to imagine*.

Wow! What a fun and interesting reason two!

But in all actuality, this Thanksgiving I was thousands of miles away from my family in America but was instead was with my family of friends here in England where, as a nation, they have just recently started to get on board with the whole Thanksgiving thing. Guess they missed that boat back in 1621!

*puts hand up for a high five* Anyone? … Anyone?…No?… Okay…

But in the true spirit of the Thanksgiving Season (get it trending), I would like to use this cheery bout of insomnia to proclaim to my grand readership of five entire people what I am thankful for.

The first thing that I’m incredibly thankful for: (and as they make up over 50% of my readership they are getting mentioned first) my family. They are a collection of the strangest, craziest, most loyal, loving, and generous people I have ever met. I have two siblings that I am lucky enough to call my best friends, who will binge eat cookie dough with me at two AM and make sure every picture I post on Instagram “fits my aesthetic”. (Judge all you want, my 13 year old sister is better at Instagram than you will ever be). I have two amazingly insane parents who will wake me up by ringing bells and clapping loudly at 7AM on a Saturday because they got bored and have spent years’ worths of hours watching the same monologues on repeat. I would not have the privilege of being thousands of miles away if it weren’t for them. (Okay…so there is a bad way to read that sentence and a good way. Read it the bad way first and chuckle to yourself, and then read it the good way which is the way I mean. Don’t you love when writing comes with instructions? I’ve hear everyone say “I love instructions” so often!)

While I miss my family, I am also so incredibly thankful for the amazing friends that I am blessed to have in my life, both the ones who are here and the ones who are not here. My family members are my best friends, but I have best friends who are like family. The ones who are at home, I think about all the time. Not in a creepy way! But in a fun friend way that’s like “aww friend”! I cannot wait to see you all and am so thankful to know that you’ll be there when I get back! The friends that I have here have made this experience the incredible journey it has been so far. You guys push me and challenge me in ways I could not have imagined. I couldn’t imagine better people to be here with. To all of you, here or back home, I am so thankful and so honored that you have let me be your friend. Also you all smell so it’s fine….whatever…

I am so incredibly thankful for this experience in London. I have changed so much since I’ve been here, and I credit this city and the school (well schools, because UConn is the school that was like “Hey, let’s accept the girl who couldn’t figure out how to open the door as she left her audition” and FSU was the school that was like “Yeah, we’ll take your acting class to London for a semester. And…I guess that girl who couldn’t open the door can come too…) that got me here! It has been wonderful, stressful, amazing, maddening, surreal, too real, perfectly insane, and every other adjective you can possibly think of probably applies to this experiences *pause to insert your own adjectives*. I feel more like a person now which sounds like the weirdest thing to say about yourself because like…what else were you? A mountain lion? (“Well…now that you mention it..” “Shut up, Richard! I’m trying to make a relatively sincere post about being Thankful! This is no time for you!” “Oh gosh…sorry…”) But I feel like a person now. And that’s a good feeling.

Finally, I’m thankful that socks don’t really have a right and a left. They can go on whatever foot you need them to. Have you ever thought of that? They’re so flexible and accommodating! Good for them!

So really, being here in London for Thanksgiving is (or, well…was) very bittersweet. I missed the family spirit, Thanksgiving food, my mom yelling at me five minutes before leaving that whatever I’m wearing is definitely not appropriate because my ankle was exposed (Hi Mom :D ). But I’m trying not to think about what I miss from home but instead think of the amazing things I got to do here. I got to spend Thanksgiving in one of the most amazing cities on earth with some of the best people I’ve had the privilege of meeting. How many people can get to say they’ve done that?

Wow. This was a long one. Congrats on making it to the end. Unless you didn’t and you skimmed right to this point. In which case I can assure you that both Shmoop and Sparknotes are coming out with summaries of this blog post that will be very helpful in writing the essay on it.

(Oh! And thanks to the consistent five people who read this. It sounds sarcastic but it does mean a lot :D )

Happy Thanksgiving Season and Merry Start to the Christmas Season!

Good Night and Good Morning

-Carly