Blessings, as read in Gravy

It was November 2019 and I was seething into my iPhone, willing a guy to text me "Happy Thanksgiving." Of course he didn't, and so of course I started crying in the bathroom, my hosts waiting patiently outside serving an array of Thanksgiving classics. They weren't my family, but they were generous enough to host me. Selfish brat, I thought to myself, but mostly, I was having a crisis of faith. I sat myself at the Thanksgiving table with tears streaking my face and thought: I'm poison. And nothing is going to save me - from myself.

One of the activities they did was to write something we were thankful for on a piece of paper, and say it out loud to the table. I wrote "gravy." When the table turned to me to see what I had to say, I said, "gravy." I delivered it deadpan, because being heartbroken makes you think you're somehow above everyone else for having suffered. The others had written things like "family" or - what else does one say? Family is everything. As I sat there, I made an indent in my mashed potatoes, ready for my gravy to be poured in at any moment, a moment when I would be ready to give up on everything, entirely.

I posted the photo of my slip of paper to Instagram, waiting for the guy to 'like' my post. Of course he didn't, and so I started crying in the bathroom all over again. You know how on Instagram, you can tell when someone was last online? And how they are obviously ignoring your post, or text, because of that? Yeah. That was how low I had sunk.

I don't know if you've ever desperately tried to stop crying in a bathroom, trying to dry tears as they are coming, but it's the equivalent of having your car in reverse when you want to be in drive - every mistake you've made, romantically, somehow taking you backwards, in a car that is only meant to serve you by going forwards.

Fast forward just one year. Or, maybe, let's do eight months later first. I am no longer crying in the bathroom, or writing facetious nonsense on a slip of paper. I am in peak Covid, and I am about to go on a blind date with a man I was set up with by a friend. I have spent the last two months getting soaked in wine at 3pm, crying - this time, in my bedroom, where I will surely die if I leave. It's been a wild ride, this last year, for someone who hasn't seen romantic wins in some time, years, eons.

I end up marrying that man. Let's go back, to what I said just in that last paragraph - one year later. It's Thanksgiving 2020. I am in his apartment, eating a cookie cake that was on sale for $1. It's not gravy, but it's everything I could have ever wanted.