An Open Letter To The Relatives At Thanksgiving Dinner Asking Me If I Know What I'm Doing With My Life

An Open Letter To The Relatives At Thanksgiving Asking Me If I Know What I'm Doing With My Life

By Isabelle Siebert

First Place Winner of the SNAPS Poetry Contest

I hope you know that every time you ask me, you push me just a little bit further, until Truth and I bump elbows at the table while you dissect the leftover bones of the Family-Approved Options for my life.

Your knife is practisced. You have carved up plenty of turkeys in your day, and nieces, nephews and grandkids aren’t all that different. Just sharpen the blade of your questions so it’ll make a clean cut and let you figure out exactly what I’ve been hiding under my skin.

In all honesty, I wish I could spill my guts, set my thoughts out on the table with the stuffing and the cranberries. In between mouthfuls of turkey and pumpkin pie, I could let you have a taste of truth and confess I’ve made my peace with the empty road. I’ve shook hands with the unknown, but you’re not ready to hear that.

See, you cook the same meal your parents did, and their parents did, and their parents did, and I am beginning to think that all of us have been fed on lies about what types of dinners and lives deserve celebration. Yes, it’s Thanksgiving, but I’d be content with grilled cheese, just as long as I was with the people I loved.

Maybe by Christmas I will have the courage to tell you this is what I’m doing with my life: I am tossing the menu to the wind, I am picking courses as they come, because I know what matters is not the meal but the people sitting next to me at the table.