Will this be the most cliché article ever…? Maybe, but it’s important to me so yolo and listen up.
Thanksgiving is a day that Americans have always used as an excuse to get together with family and friends, prepare a feast, and give thanks for what we have. The mythology of Thanksgiving though as a holiday where people sit around eating pumpkin pie and canned cranberry sauce is far from the reality of what massacre, disease, and betrayal took place in 1620. Thanksgiving is another example of how we as Americans choose the side of deceit continuously instead of confronting the truth.
Enough though about my desire to always uncover facts from fiction and be a pessimist. 2020 has been one of the craziest years most of us have experienced where everything has been turned upside down, lives have been lost, and overall a sense of uneasiness and constant fear has taken over for the past 8 months. The one thing I will take away from Americanized Thanksgiving while I eat my Indian takeout Chicken Tikka Masala and Onion Naan is giving thanks, counting my blessings, and making sure the people I love and care about know how much they mean to me. I am absolutely humbled and blessed to be in my warm home with my family, with clothes on my back, to be employed, and to have our health. I wanted to dedicate this post not only to Indigenous people and groups who we have neglected for years but also to everything and everyone I am grateful for.
I am so blessed to have grown into the person I am today at 22 years old. Even though I know I will go through 2128943 more versions of me, I could not be happier with the one I am right now. After a few years of feeling as though I lost my personality through being in the wrong crowd, focusing on the wrong things, and not prioritizing myself, I can proudly say that in the past year I have never felt more like Victoria Grace Guardino. I can of course credit myself for escaping destructive situations, doing more research about what I care about, and setting goals for myself, but I couldn’t have possibly done any of that without my rock solid support system.
To my parents and immediate family who constantly sacrifice for me, care for me, love me, and overall fill me with joy even in the strenuous times, I appreciate you more than you know. To my friends who are always a shoulder for me to cry on and there to jump for joy when I accomplish something, thank you so much, you give me life. To everyone who is reading this article and has taken the time out to follow my shenanigans on my Instagram and subscribe to my blog, this little family I have created which I know will continue to grow into a huge family one day, thank you for letting me live out my dream of having this platform and letting me take up your time with my words.
I wish you all nothing but success, love, good health, and safety and hope that you’ll join me in reflecting on what you need more of in your life and what you can rid yourself of. Send those texts to the people you care about and that care for you thanking them, I promise they will be appreciative.
In honor of today, I donated to 5 different organizations that support Indigenous people and lives. This is a day about giving and there is no better group of people that should be receiving and that we should be thanking today. Here is a list of a few of the places I found that you could donate to as well which I hope you will:
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