Although fictional, Tevye is a role model of mine

I'm a lucky bastard.

Last weekend marked a whole effing year that my girlfriend has put up with me. Let's back up a little here.

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In my teenage years, fueled by typical angst as well as motivational punk rock (pun-krock) & hardcore melodies as well as a couple different variants of drugs as well as Carlo Rossi as well as a certain brand of cigarettes & also not to forget my crumbling (read: nonexistent) relationship with my family, I became an iconoclast. & thus ridded myself of all traditions which family, society, religion, tv, had introduced me to. Of course, knowing full well that man is measured by his traditions, it is the essence of culture, I started rebuilding from the ground up. Destroy to rebuild, yes, I know, the paradigm of anarchy the teenaged wesley was. When it came to rebuilding though, I wasn't too picky or bright in my choices of self-traditions. I possessed an arsenal of fairly stupid, certainly unhealthy, traditions. If these formative years were recorded & bound it would read like a choose your own adventure serial. That pointless & that tough to navigate.

In theory, one creating all their own traditions is perfectly fine, even something to be encouraged, admired. Romantic perhaps. & beyond that it is also typical. One is born with her family's traditions, as she grows & leaves the nest she begins creating her own with her own family (be that of blood or a family of friends) & these replace her old ones. Perfectly fine. Natural. What I did was a little different. I didn't include anyone else in any of my personal trads. This wasn't by practice. I guess it just sorta slipped my mind that I might someday want other people around with whom to celebrate those things which I found important. A culture of one doesn't have much going for it. Did you ever see that movie Nell with Jodie Foster? She was crazy & she was basically a culture of one.

Fast forward just a little bit, a few years back now.

A good portion of my friends have done the same as I. We're all living our own isolated lifes, which intersect at times. Holidays are notorious for makeing one homesick. & it's a punishing type of homesick. You aren't necessarily yearning for home home, but this completely intangible concept of home. Comfort, security, love, warmth & innumerable other related words. So we all decide to have a Thanksgiving together. This one Thanksgiving might have actually hindered my desire to create traditions & celebrate with others more than it helped it. The only thing I think I celebrated was my ability to drink four bottles of champagne (on top of wine & gewürztraminer) & the poignant, suffocatingly poignant idea that that intangible concept mentioned earlier was something I would never again be able to attain.

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Perhaps one of the things I appreciate & love the most about my skirt is that she has made it possible for me celebrate with another. With someone I love & who I know loves me.

Darling, thank you.