Thanksgiving Birthday

Thanksgiving is one of the American holidays that I miss the most.  Since moving to Sweden 5 years ago, we haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving.  But this year, for my mothers birthday (which falls on the 3rd of November) my sister and I decided to make a Thanksgiving birthday dinner.   We made turkey with stuffing (the turkeys in Sweden are without steroids, so are quite smaller).  The biggest turkey I could find was about slightly over 4 kilos.  We also made sweet potatoes, with brown sugar and marshmallows, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and strawberry jello with :bananas, and of course gravy.  For dessert we had apple pie a la mode.  My sister set a beautiful table:

 

At dinner, we all went around and said what we were thankful for.  Most of all, my sister and I were thankful for my mother, for each other, and that we all could be together.  I am so thankful for my family, and Gods blessings.

Fall Back

Finally reset my bedroom clock after both an electrical shortage, and  the Fall time change last week.  I figured out that the clock reset itself to approximately one.hour-and-fifteen minutes slow, so instead of re-setting the clock, I’ve been adding an hour and fifteen minutes to the time all week. 

As far as the clock in the kitchen is concerned, time stopped months ago.  By the looks of the piled up dirty dishes, that’s apparently clear.  Attempted replacing the battery last week, with another dead battery, so time has stood still in my kitchen at 10 past 10 or 10 past 20 (depending on how you look at it).

I have been stuck in a time-warp now for a little over 5 years.  My body moved to Sweden five years ago, but my mind, heart and soul clung on to memories of people, places, times, loves in the states, and it’s really hard to be in two places at one time, so I never reset my clock, my internal clock to adjust to the days, people and new life  around me.

I haven’t sprung forward, just stayed back. 

I’ve always loved the Fall.  The trees shedding their summer foliage, their leaves of red, yellow, orange and brown carpeting the earth, for one last burst of color beneath our feet, prior to the winter snow.  The excitement of starting new schools, classes, jobs.  New school clothes, crisp blank paper in new notebooks, the clean slate of starting over, the academic new year.  The promise of great things if you only apply yourself.

Taking place

This is directly translated from Swedish “att ta plats”, in English it would be more like…taking space, being noticed, not being invisible.

I find that I have taken very little space the last few years here, I have isolated, and kept to myself, and also felt sorry for myself because of this.  There have been very many good reasons, and excuses to not be noticed or draw attention to myself.

One reason, is that I have gained a lot of weight (probably due to not doing anything but isolating).  Funny, but the bigger I got, the less I was noticed, and the more I disappeared.   I think this is because the only acceptable form of discrimination in Swedish society (and probably a lot of other countries), is against the overweight, or obese members of society.

I didn’t realize how moving to another country right before turning 40 would impact me.  I not only went through the midlife crisis (feeling sorry for myself), but also the what am I doing here? crisis.

It’s taken me a little over 5 years to start thawing.  By that I mean, starting to accept where I’m at, who I am, and where I live.  Starting to notice the people and places around me, good and bad.  Starting to have a voice again.

It’s the darkest time of the year over here, but somehow I’m finding the light that went out in my life, many years ago, probably even before I moved to Sweden.  I’m starting to feel alive again.

I’m wanting to take space.