Just the way it is

It's Thanksgiving, and yes, I don't eat animals so it's "Happy Tofurkey" day for me, fine, laugh-- whatever! I don't care. Really.
But what I do care about is my friends. My family of course, too, my three stooges and everyone. But I think I might be the most blessed person on the planet, or maybe the entire galaxy. I have the best friends.
I have the old friends who have been my friends forever, since high school or middle school or whatever. We talk all the time, we play on facebook and email and the wicked scrabulous game when we know very well who grew up on scrabble and who will win, but we play to be together. And the old friends who turn up after decades and somehow still matter because we never stopped loving them, we just didn't know where to find them.
And the new friends who are family even though it's only been a few years. We've been through too much to have anything ever pull us apart. We'll be there now, forever. Just the way it is. And our kids will grow up together, and dance at each other's weddings. And I can just hope that some of them will marry each other and we'll be family for real.
And we'll have holidays and birthdays and who knows what all that cements us all together. Just the way it is.
How can I not spend the whole day in the deepest "thank you" prayer I've ever offered? I have to. Make the gravy and the potatoes, baste the big dead bird who never did anything to you....and I'll be saying it under my breath. "thank you". Not to the bird, although him too. But to everyone I love, everyone who matters. All of you. "thank you."
Just the way it is.