Everything is super calm today in New York. It’s Thanksgiving — America’s favorite holiday that no one else in the world celebrates.
For someone who isn’t from here, it’s a fun long weekend when all the Americans are with their families and all the expats get together to hang out. It’s a good time to recharge, get caught up on work, catch up on sleep and also get drunk like everyone else, because after all, even if you’re not from here, Thanksgiving is a holiday everyone ends up loving.
You’re always invited somewhere for Thanksgiving. Everyone checks to make sure you’re not alone. It’s funny, it’s the least commercial and the most touching of all the holidays I know. If you’re not busy trying to get a giant turkey into a tiny oven, you’re quickly overcome by emotion.
It’s the time of year when we say thank you.
It’s also the perfect time to sit down and reflect on the year that’s about to end. Such an incredible, interesting, complicated year. This year, I often felt like I was venturing out into the unknown. I didn’t always understand what was happening to me, I had to rethink my way of doing things, and leave behind certain comforts without knowing what would be waiting for me on the other side. Sometimes I lost sleep over it, and I had some real moments of anxiety – but there was always someone there to help me, whether it was my friends, my family, or my team — officially the best team in the whole entire world.
I also received dozens of emails — of course, a lot of them were about my break up and they wished me happiness, even though the difficulties I mentioned above weren’t only to do with that.
But most of all, the emails were from readers who told me their stories, their worries, and thanked me for being there. Those emails, and also everything I’ve heard from my friends, make me think that I wasn’t the only one who had a rocky few months.
I don’t know about you, but it seems like all of us got shaken up a bit these last few months. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but a lot of us had to leave behind old habits and adopt new ways of thinking.
I put the final period on my book yesterday — it’s been in the works for such a long time. This was the first time I had worked on such a long-term and profound project. Writing a book is like disappearing, and when you’re in the middle of it, it’s like being in the middle of a crisis. In the middle of the ocean. You feel like there’s no beginning and no end and you’ll never find your way out.
But you just have to keep moving forward and believe in it wholeheartedly — you have to be sure that if you keep moving forward little by little, one day you’ll make it to the shore.
I really do have so much to be thankful for. Big hugs and kisses to you all.
Translated by Andrea Perdue
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