I have a vendetta against Thank You cards – this is, perhaps, not the correct way to begin this kind of article is it, kittens? The Wrong Impression could be a legitimate concern here, judging solely by the above expressed feeling.
A narrative hook eschewing gratitude for an event promoting it? Questionable. I’m supposed to be telling you about the warm and wholesome Many Thanks! craft time at the Louisville Free Public Library’s Main branch (that’s what I said I was going to do with the title). About how it’s geared to hands-on holiday appreciation. About how it’s an excellent way to show youngins’ that the gluttony of getting is not nearly as important as the glow of giving. About how it’s tomorrow. At 2pm. Tomorrow is Thursday, December 27th. Wee ones might be a little stir crazy by then.
You are thinking, though, that this is going to transform into the majestic and colorful butterfly of an Epic Rant against Gratitude. Not so, loves. Listen:
I have a vendetta against Thank You cards – simply because I know what they really mean. The meaning – I mean – that has very little to do with the Thanks expressed in whatever curly script stamped on factory cardstock. This Thank You from You to Me is a handwritten act of grateful slavery. This Thank You is a painfully-forced beautiful moment of obligation from You to Me forever immortalized on paper. I can picture You writing to Me in a carpal tunnel tirade as You slog through the long list of People to whom You are supposed to give painstaking Thanks. Thanks for whatever it is Me and People all collectively did for You – probably some silly Life Event. There was probably cake and awkward photography involved.
But I can feel how much you don’t really want to write those Thank Yous, even if you are truly grateful. I’m sure you are. I’m sure that – in the moment of said Life Event – you felt all kinds of gold on the inside (I hope) as Me and People gathered ‘round you. I’m sure the all kinds of gold went straight through your chest, through your heart and exploded into your head. I’m sure it popped all kinds of fizzy bubbles of Good when we slobbered human love all over you for a minute. Even if it was hectic and a little weird and whirl-windy embarrassing on the outside, deep down, in the belly parts, it was a gooey kind of wonderful.
I know you’re thankful for it. Whatever it was.
I’m thankful Me and People could do all that stuff to your insides. Everybody needs the gold and the bubbles and the goo just for them at some point or another. In the moment, it sure was grand, eh?
