The Things You Never Remember.

Tradition. We all want it. It’s something we look forward to, like the tradition of always leaving work at five, of getting brunch on Sunday afternoons, of getting dinner then seeing the movie. These are the things that keep us going, the little things that we need to hold on to in the ever-changing world that surrounds us.

Turkey. Every year it’s the same. A big piece of meat in the oven and you don’t know how it got there. A woman, most likely, somewhere in the house acquired it at a grocery store, perhaps days, even weeks before, and you wake up mid-morning and find that its been sitting in the oven for hours already. You know not to question how or when it got there. All you need to know is, (like it is every year) that it will be ready by 3PM.

Amidst this whole extravagant day that is based solely around eating massive amounts of food, you always do find yourself around family members for a longer period of time than you’ve been in years. Decades, it seems. When you were twelve at least. You find yourself asking the questions: did Mom always drink that many martinis while mashing the potatoes? Did Dad always ask this many questions about the overall direction of my future? Questions of money, stability, growth? Did Grandmother, (who at one time seemed so sweet) always pester you about when, when for crying out loud, will you just bring home a nice boy for all of us to meet? (As though you really are going out of your way not to meet someone just so that she won’t die “a happy woman.”)

And then it’s over. You’re out of your mind and out on the back porch drinking glass of wine number too many to count, cold, wondering why it is that Tradition, as great and stable as it tries to be, is never ever the same as you remember it. You have that one great holiday that one time in your past, the one that makes you still believe in holidays, the one that keeps you participating and loyally eating cranberry in the shape of a can, every year with the hope that one day you’ll get it back again – that and of course, a normal family.

It’s the burnt turkeys, and the fights and arguments, the feeling of being too full, and the overwhelming sense that your life is getting away from you, the years that come and go so fast, that all you can remember after a while are all of the things that make you hate the holidays and tradition and your less than normal family (well what is normal really?).

But it’s the things you never remember, (and we all have them), that have us booking train tickets and packing into airport terminals, and waiting on standby, and getting over our fear of cruising at 50,000 feet. Because we all know, deep down, that no amount of turkey (no matter who makes it) is worth all of that.