Avoiding MAGA relatives over Thanksgiving (asking for advice)

[buzzycrumbhunger]

34. Why choose to suffer?

It’s a HOLIDAY. It should be a day of camaraderie, rest, good food, friends, and family. Why should you suffer through something you know is going to be stressful? The pretense that you “want” to share this day with a family you don’t have anything much in common with just sounds miserable.

I vote for visiting friends or helping at a community feed—something the opposite of stressful that will leave you feeling happy at the end of the day. Make a new family and skip the guilt. Do what makes YOU happy because you’re the one that matters and you’re getting tied up in knots about “offending” people you’d never be friends with if not for family ties. Even the MAGAts who are starting to wake up are not likely to be losing any sleep about making *you* comfortable, so why be a martyr? It feels like you’d go more to make them feel good than benefitting yourself.

Mind you, I pretty much divorced my family two or three decades ago and have no regrets or longing to recapture what might have appeared to be a happy childhood. The fact that we happen to be related to people who have next to nothing in common with who we are now makes it seem silly to force interactions that only cause us stress. I bet making you comfortable is the last thing they’d consider.

I’m sure their close proximity adds an extra layer of awkwardness but damn, place your own well-being at the forefront and give yourself a break. Holidays are stressful enough as it is.