A Redneck Thanksgiving
I traveled home to New Orleans for Thanksgiving, taking a much needed break from reality. Since the birth of my daughter, my family has found a way to deal with each other for small amounts of time, so we decided to get together for a few hours on Thanksgiving Day.
As I sat on the back porch of my cousin’s house watching my relatives interact exactly as they did twenty years ago, I drifted back to five-years-old, sitting in the folding chair and listening to them tell stories about one another while sipping cheap beer from Koozies. (You ain’t redneck if yer beer ain’t in a koozie.) Only now, time has etched lines into their faces, and I was overcome with a feeling akin to sympathy. These people have lived HARD lives. Who could possibly begrudge them their alcoholism & cynical comments? If I had to live the life they had, I’d be drunk, too. As it is, I feel I hardly have the right to complain about ANYTHING, but even when my life is at it’s worst, I don’t have to deal with the heartache & unhappiness that these people have suffered for a lifetime.
Maybe I’m in the Christmas spirit, or maybe I’ve finally decided to just let go of old demons, but I LOVE these people. Even if they say I’m fat, or uptown, or my baby is ugly. They only say those things because they’re wretchedly unhappy & have to do something to feel better about themselves. And when the alcohol doesn’t work anymore, that’s when the meanness comes out. But I don’t think they’re genuinely mean.