Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!

Thanksgiving is not something that is celebrated in Australia, and therefore, Thanksgiving is not a holiday that was a part of my upbringing.

While I’ve been in Canada for 11 years now, Thanksgiving is still not a holiday I have shared with others.

There has never been a shortage of invites, and this weekend was no exception, however, because it’s one I’ve never celebrated – it feels like something I would like to celebrate for the first time with my own family.

For many years I imagined it would be with the love of my life and his family, and I still hold out hope that one day I will get to share it with the man of my dreams. I’ve put that hope on the side burner to focus on becoming a mom and creating a family unit without a man in my life.

Becoming a mom is imminent – we even have a tentative move in date! – and so I wanted to spend my last Thanksgiving weekend alone, giving thanks for all that I am, all that I have lived, and all that I am becoming.

How did I do that?

• Writing
• Long walks on beautiful misty mornings
• Long baths with my favourite meditation CD
• Meditation or mindfulness during all activities
• Enjoying the quiet moments of reflection
• Taking time to consider all of the things for which I am truly thankful now and in my personal history
• Talking with a girlfriend on the phone for 3 hours about adoption
• Making delicious foods that I enjoy to eat, and savouring them
• Drinking some good wine with those delicious foods
• Reading about attachment
• Reading a book for pleasure – getting lost in it 🙂
• Watching a movie – or two
• And then some practical things too, such as: packing more boxes and cleaning more thoroughly in preparation for November’s move, and regular weekend tasks like laundry, vacuuming, mopping.

These are the weekends that I cherish. The ones where I don’t actually “do” anything, I’m not “busy”, and there are no commitments. Just me, doing whatever feels good to me from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep again.

(If I could have one wish granted it would be the ability to choose from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep how to spend my day… a.k.a. lottery win!)

And I realise these “me” weekends are limited so I took the time to make the most of this one in a way that felt meaningful to me.

I adore the alone time that I get, these moments, days or weekends where I am able to get up and spend a day in quiet reflection doing all of the things that I enjoy to do. I treasure this ability and recognise that it will be the hardest thing for me to give up initially when my children come home.

When I ran into a friend at the supermarket on Saturday she asked me what I was doing for the weekend and I told her – “me time” talking long baths, walking in nature, breathing, meditating, reading, writing… over the top of her son’s head she mouthed “I hate you!” That sentiment right there is one that many mothers share; they love and adore their families but miss that alone time, the time for reflection, self-care, and centering.

It is the one thing I am most scared of missing when my children arrive.

And of course, I speak from the place of not having children – so I also realise that the “compromise” may not even register when I am looking into the happy faces of my children. It might register in those moments where they are melting down… but I know that for the most part I won’t ever want to switch my life back to this time of “just me”.

The top 12 things for which I am most thankful this weekend:

• The beautiful family of friends I have, without whom I would be lost
• My two new daughters who I am yet to meet but love already
• H’s foster mom who is being so open, honest, and supportive even though this move will be devastating for her and her family
• The good health I enjoy every day and the body that allows me to experience this life in ways that delight me
• The imaginative mind with which I have been blessed
• A love of writing, and the ability (and time) to do so
• Reading for pleasure
• That I love and adore my own company
• The breathtaking place in which I get to live (as I type this the clouds are parting on the mountain I can see from my window and there is a blanket of new snow on it’s peak… amazing!)
• Being Canadian and able to live in Canada for the rest of my life
• The employment I have – though I grumble about it sometimes – which will allow me to live in a manner that is comfortable.
• Every moment that I’ve lived to this point in time that has made me who I am today – though not all pleasurable, without those moments (or those people) I may not be where I am… and for where I am now I am truly thankful.

As for next Thanksgiving…

I will be a mom.

I will have been a mom for a little over 10 months.

It will be my first ever traditional Thanksgiving weekend.

It will be our first Thanksgiving weekend together as a family.

How will it look?

I don’t know, but my hope is that together my daughters and I will create traditions that we can carry on for the rest of our family Thanksgivings.

Warm pumpkin pie smiles and Love,

Ali Jayne 🙂