A Thanksgiving of sorts...

Much as I find the history behind the Thanksgiving celebrations across the great big pond distressing, I also feel that it is profoundly healing to take time out to give thanks. This is as good a time as any, so here follows my own thanksgiving wishes for the season.

I'd like to give thanks to my mother. You were a pioneer, mum, leaving your humble, tiny, rural roots to move to Stockholm on your own at 16. You roamed Sweden like no one else I know. Thanks for all your stories about Lapland and the wonderful times you spent there for nine long winters. Thanks for daring to be an older mum, long before it was common, grinning and bearing it when you had comments such as "oh, isn't your grand-child lovely" when you took me out in the pram as a toddler.
Bizarre though this might sound, thanks for developing dementia. Your illness is forcing me to re-evaluate everything and accepting you just as you are now - a different person, not the mother I knew. You being in care is also allowing me time with my father, developing a closeness with each other that I haven't know since I was a young child.

Thanks to my father - you're kinder, lovelier and more vulnerable than I ever knew you to be and I am happy you are still in my life.

Thanks to all my family in Sweden, Norway, the United States and China. We may not see each other often, but you're in my heart and my thoughts.

Thanks to all my amazing friends, near and far. I'm happy that we have connected over the years.

Thanks to every boss I've ever disagreed with (that would be most) - without you I would not be working for myself today.
Special thanks to my last supervisor in my very last office job in 2005. If we had even remotely got on, I would not have decided to go freelance and focus on my writing. I owe you one, big time!

Thanks to anyone who's ever taken a complete, heartfelt disliking to me - I prefer not to leave people lukewarm.

Thanks to anyone who's ever loved me - no matter how misguided the emotion.

Thanks to the scars I've acquired - physical and emotional - I couldn't have got here without you.

Thanks to my abusive ex - if you hadn't treated me like shit and threatened to kill me or anyone who ever got involved with me, the road to true self-respect and self-love might have been longer and more crooked (but possibly safer).

Thanks to all the publishers and publications I've ever worked with - even the ones who didn't pay me, the ones who spelled my name wrong and the ones who forgot to mention my name altogether.

Thanks to the 92 countries visited to date - most of you were awesome and I won't name and shame the 2 that sucked.

Thanks to my grandmother Olga - you were the best grandmother I could wish for and even though mum always thought you'd be horrified to find out that I'm gay, I know you'd have been all right. I hope you're with your favourite sister Erika who emigrated to the U.S. when you were so young, the sister you never had the chance to see again while you were alive.

Special thanks to all cats - you're awesomeness personified!!

Finally thanks to tacos, bourbon and late night Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If I've forgotten any more heartfelt thanks to be given, I'll put it in my Christmas letter.