We're still here.
We're STILL here?
The morning after Thanksgiving always feels like the world is exhaling.
The house is quieter than it was yesterday. The air has settled. The shadows seem to have agreed to return to their usual places.
Even the refrigerator sounds tired.
There is something comforting in this strange calm. It feels like the echo of a ritual that was performed correctly. The table was gathered around. Food was shared. Stories were offered. Laughter lifted whatever weight had been pressing down on the week. For one night, the ordinary held firm.
Then Friday arrives, today arrives and it feels like the world is waking up slowly, unsure if it should return to normal or stay suspended just a little longer before the next thing begins.
Yet, a weekend is here.
The Leftovers of the Day Before
In the kitchen, the leftovers sit like artifacts.
They carry the warmth of yesterday but look slightly altered in the morning light, as if the night gave them time to dream. Cold turkey, quiet pies, potatoes that now have the texture of memory instead of food.
You open the fridge, stare at everything on the shelves, and realize it is impossible to feel disappointed in leftovers. They are proof that for one day the world was generous.
Even the smallest plate feels earned.
The house still holds a faint scent of yesterday. It fades and redistributes itself in unfamiliar corners, as if the walls want to remember what happened even after everyone else forgets.
The Long Drift of Friday
There is a special kind of stillness on this day.
It does not feel like a holiday and it does not feel like an ordinary morning. It feels like something in-between, a thin place where nothing demands anything from you except that you notice a few details.
The way the light falls on the table.
The way silence stretches without breaking.
The faint sense that something vast has moved back out of sight, satisfied for now.
You feel a little more grounded than usual.
A little more human.
A little more aware of how fragile and incredible it is that we get to sit together and call it a meal.
Yesterday we faced one another. Ate pieces of one another.
Took pieces of each other for ourselves. Shared. Took in. Took of. Offered, received, perhaps denied.
But even if alone we communed, even if at a distance.
Because a table is not just wood and plates. It is an exchange. A crossing of currents. An unspoken surrender to the idea that survival is never solitary, even when we pretend otherwise.
Every meal is a quiet borrowing.
A little strength taken from the world.
A little understanding taken from someone’s eyes.
A little warmth stolen from the fire of another living soul.
Some of us sat with family.
Some with friends.
Some with ghosts.
Some with silence that felt almost alive in the room beside us.
And yet it was still communion.
Still contact.
Still a recognition that we remain connected in ways we rarely admit except around a table covered in the remnants of gratitude.
There is something ancient in that.
Something that watches through us.
Something that understands that sharing a meal is as close to a truce as humanity ever gets.
Today the plates are cold.
The chairs are empty.
The world has resumed its usual noise.
But what passed between us yesterday does not vanish.
It settles in the bones.
It stays in the breath.
It shapes the quiet hours that follow.
Even if you sat alone.
Even if no one spoke your name.
Even if the only witness to your meal was the shifting light on the wall.
You still participated in something older than tradition.
Something that binds us whether we acknowledge it or not.
Something that whispers, softly,
that we are not as alone as we think we are.
A Return to Perspective
The world will start spinning again soon.
The news will return.
The noise will resume.
The rhythm of ordinary problems will step back into place.
But for this one morning after, there is a gift in the soft pause.
The reminder that even when life feels heavy or strange or stretched thin, there are still moments that root us in something real.
Something familiar.
Something warm enough to push back the cold edges of whatever else waits beyond our little human circle.
The day after Thanksgiving is not grand.
It is not dramatic. It is not remarkable in any loud way.
But it is steady. And sometimes steady is the most miraculous thing we get.
Wherever you are, in this world or any other place that resembles one, I hope today gives you a small reason to feel grounded, yet again.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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