The Season That Brings Us Home

By Jennifer Kelleher

Every year, my high school friends and I try to pull off a potluck Friendsgiving. This year, we did it at my house. In the midst of kids running in every direction, adults congregating around the kitchen island, picking at appetizers, laughing, and telling stories, something hit us. We looked at each other and realized: We have officially become our parents.

It wasn’t said in a dramatic way. It was said with this soft, almost amused awareness. The way the kids took off their jackets and instantly vanished into a back room, the way the music played in the background while the adults caught up over snacks, the way the kids tore through the house in a blur of laughter while we just smiled, remembering when that used to be us. It was all so familiar. These scenes have played out for decades, only now the roles have shifted. We are the ones hosting, feeding, planning, gathering, and keeping the tradition alive.

There’s something both comforting and humbling about the passing of generations. When you’re young, you never imagine yourself as the adult who reminds kids to share, or who worries if there are enough napkins, or who quietly looks around the room and thinks about how fast time is moving. But here we are. Life hands the baton to you in a way you don’t fully notice until you look up one day in a crowded kitchen and think, “Oh. It’s us now.”

As we talked– about work, about our kids’ personalities, about how quickly the year went– another theme came up: how many young people we know who have passed away far too soon. It’s something that’s been happening more often lately, or maybe we’re just more aware of it. Either way, it shook us a bit. It reminded us how fragile this whole thing really is.

We paused. We breathed. We looked at each other with a little more softness.

These moments, these friendships, these noisy kitchens with not enough steak knives and kids’ shoes kicked off by the door… this is the good stuff. The irreplaceable stuff. And it is so, so easy to rush past it, thinking life is happening somewhere else, somewhere in the future, somewhere after the next goal or milestone. But it’s here. It’s in the people who have known you since you were 13. It’s in the holidays where everyone is just trying their best. It’s in showing up, year after year, despite the chaos of life.

This time of year has a way of bringing perspective. It asks us quietly, but persistently: What actually matters? Who actually matters?

And gratitude– real gratitude, not the quick “I’m grateful for my family” answer we toss out without thinking– has this incredible ability to bring us back into ourselves. Back into presence. Back into what’s true.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful anchors we have for living well. It shifts our chemistry, lifts our mood, strengthens our relationships, and pulls us gently away from comparison, hurry, and fear. When you practice gratitude regularly, your lens changes. You start seeing more of what is right than what is wrong. More abundance than lack. More connection than separation. Gratitude doesn’t erase the hard things, but it gives them context. It reminds us that even in the messiest seasons, there is still beauty, still love, still something worth holding onto.

So as we move through this season of thanks, I invite you to take a few quiet moments for yourself. Sit down, close your eyes, and ask: What am I grateful for right now, in this season of my life? Who am I grateful for? What moments, big or small, have shaped me this year? Let the answers come softly. Let them fill you.

Because life is unpredictable, people are irreplaceable, and these days… these ordinary, beautiful, fleeting days… are gifts.

May we remember to cherish them while we’re here. May we nurture what we have. And may we keep showing up for each other, in kitchens full of laughter, in years that move too fast, in traditions that remind us who we are and where we came from.

Happy Thanksgiving.

For information on yoga classes, Pilates classes, sound baths, and workshops in Rockaway Beach, NY, visit oceanblissyoga.net or call me at 917-318-1168.