Giving Thanks With the Clinically Depressed

I invite you to close your eyes and imagine what Thanksgiving looks like in the home of the mentally ill. If you struggle to render such an image, let me offer some convenient hints: think grotesque quantities of unseasoned, over-steamed food, bitter commentary about the health and weight of those who are standing mere feet away, and the frequent exchange of nervous glances to ensure that the delusion of familial happiness is well-maintained.

I look forward to each Thanksgiving, somehow having forgotten the last. I spend my year in New York, basking in the love and energy of my friends, and even the very city itself. My eyes glaze over as I stare at the sterling silver chargers in the windows of Tiffany’s, imagining how they might look on my family’s long wooden table some time in late November. I fantasize about fleeing the confines of my drafty apartment for my childhood bedroom, as though it weren’t somehow haunted by my former selves. I let myself bask in the advertising, as though a perfectly-glazed turkey is somehow the answer to all of my problems.

When I arrive in my native Pittsburgh, this conjured warmth is left at the bus station like lost luggage, and I am plunged into the cold reality of another year surrounded by those who haven’t quite figured out how to love each other.