My gym was closing at noon on Thanksgiving. After running a few errands, I decided to go for a quick workout. It was after eleven and I figured I'd be the only one there. Wrong. The place was packed. Young people, mostly.
I assume this was a guilt workout. Knowing they'd stuff themselves later, they wanted to work off excess calories and give themselves permission to engorge with family.
But suppose something else was going on. Suppose none of them had a family and this was a way to congregate with people on this holiday which demands we have someone to spend it with. Maybe after the gym closed they would meet in the underground parking lot and chat about nothing, dreading to leave and confront the rest of the day alone.
I didn't stick around to verify. I had a blog to write, a CVS sale to case in on and my power walking in the park to complete. This year was too cold to attend the parade, much too chilly to watch the skaters at Bryant Park. At three I'd be at my sister-in-laws watching football. When my brother died in 2009 something vanished from this holiday that will never return.
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