How to be Thankful for a Hard Year

So this holiday season I had to really look inward for what I was thankful for. To say 2009 was an easy year for me is like saying sitting down to dinner with Ann Coulter and not knocking her out after the salad course would be easy. This year was definitely a lesson in humility, that apexed on in the middle of November, when I found out that we lost the original location for our bistro. We had pined over the location for almost a year, having meetings with the real estate agent and owner of the building. My husband and I had taken his parents to see the location while they were in town from Colorado. We pulled up to the location and like drones around a hive, construction workers were swarming the site. The "for lease" sign was gone from the window and I slowly sunk back in my seat and stared out of the window. I choked back tears and could feel heat building inside me until I felt numb. It was like catching your lover cheating on you, and all you want to do is look away, but you are trapped in this trance. Wishing that what you are seeing isn't real. My ears were ringing so loud that I couldn't hear people talking to me. My husband repeated a question to me and I finally woke up. I cracked out a response followed by a stream of tears, apologizing to everyone in the car for my behavior.

Later my friend Jen D. rolled through giving me a much needed hug and asking, "What are you going to do now?" We had found out that the building was being renovated for a hair salon. The fourth one on the same block! I told Jen that I was going to bust in on opening day of the salon with my hair picked out and a hole cut in the back and yell, "You see what these bitches did to my hair! You don't wanna get your hair done here!" Jen laughed and retorted, "You are a hot ass mess!" And I was. I would never do that, it wasn't their fault that we lost out on the location. It's just how business goes. We will find another location.

So to digress, what I am thankful for this year is that I made it through. I met a version of myself that I didn't even know existed. I am a fighter. I got beat down by 2009 like it was Kimbo Slice and still got up and went back in the cage for more. When I had my son back in 2007, I was in labor for two days. Yes two full painful days. (And I even hosted a dinner party and cooked a fabulous dinner while having contractions) At one point I was in intolerable pain in my mother's arms on the way to the hospital. I was shaking and crying and she was whispering to me that I was "a Guyton woman" and that I was" strong and could handle this". I ,of course, whimpered back that I was "not strong"and "needed pain drugs NOW!". But again she calmly reassured me that I was, it was in my bloodline. Two years later I realized that she was right. Guyton women are some of the baddest bitches on the block. I am proud to be one. So "thank you" 2009 for being such a beast, because without you I never would have grown to the person I am today.