The less-obvious

With Thanksgiving upon us, I thought it a good moment to stop and offer thanks. Like most people, I'm thankful for family, job, friends, a roof over my head and other things that belong in the "obvious blessings" category. This is not to belittle those in the least.

The tricky thing about thankfulness and blessings, though, is that they're often hidden behind less-than-shiny exteriors and topped with unpleasant-smelling things that aren't bows. I decided, for the sake of honesty and prose, to consider a few of these less-obvious things.

In no particular order:

• My mother's insistence that my brother and I become, respectively, a truck driver and a hairdresser (her exact words were "beauty operator," harkening back to a time of rollers and Dippity-Do). Her reasoning was pretty smart actually--we'd both always be able to find work. I'm the disappointment; the family black sheep because I have a Master's Degree and am considering doctorate work. Realizing that roller sets weren't for me, I opted for a different path that I undertook knowing full well what it was going to cost.

• And if I'm thankful for her well-intentioned advice, then I need to be thankful for the racial divide that was the cosmetology program at Cleveland High School. If I hadn't been the only Caucasian in the class, I probably would've stuck with the program and would now be working in a BoRics knockoff in a strip mall somewhere in America's heartland because, let's face it, I just wasn't that good at it.

• Neighbors whom I detested back in our MI subdivision. If there's a poster-family for picking subdivisions populated by those with whom we have nothing in common (I really wanted to use the term "asshats" but didn't want to be confrontational), we're it. On the plus side, if it weren't for finally reaching my breaking point with their...differentness, I probably wouldn't be where I am--which fortunately is a place I expect to call home for a very long time.

• A 15-year attempt to finish my BA which left me $20,000 in debt. I lived in Alaska fer cryin' out loud, more than a decade before anyone ever heard of Sarah Palin. How many of us get to say that?

• The fact that I grew up working poor and a first-generation high school graduate because it means that I can budget, balance, beg and eventually qualify for a fellowship that paid for my MA in its entirety.

• I'm also grateful for growing up poor because I can see keenly how very privileged my current space is and how slim the line is between the two.

• And finally, I'm renting a house that is approximately 1/3 the size of one I own in Michigan. It's cramped, but in a place where there are boys and sidewalks and neighbors who engage with each other. We don't have a lot of our stuff here but what we do have, has value. This small space has required us to consider what matters and let go of what what doesn't. If that's not something to be thankful for, I don't know what is.