An airing of grievances... - by Mike Vanderbilt
There will be no airing of grievances from me. I considered going in on cowardice, integrity, naivety, the futile nature of “thoughts and prayers,” and reminding everyone that I NEVER WORKED at Sid’s Place, but I didn’t get to be where I’m at by dwelling on the past, and maybe it’s time I let the past die.
I would rather reflect upon what I’m thankful for in 2023.
I’m thankful for the friends I lost. As embarrassed as I am at the amount of time, energy, and goodwill I invested in people who must have secretly hated me for years, (it’s the only reason I can see why anyone could sit by silently and allow someone they considered a friend go through that) I’m thankful that I won’t have to do that anymore. It’s interesting to think about a world before social media where if you didn’t make an effort to check in with someone, you had no idea what was going on in their lives. And most people done deserve the privilege of what is going on in your life.
I’m thankful for the new friends I made in pursuing my new old passions, a new career, countless hustles, art, and photography. I make new friends (whether I want to or not) wherever I go and I see that as a gift, particularly when it appears that a lot of people never made a new friend after high school, living life like a Springsteen tune without the romanticism.
But what I’m most thankful for is the friendships and familial relationships I’ve rekindled. I was at times blinded by my very mild successes—“fans,” listeners, hangers-on who really just kept in touch in case you could do something for them—and lost focus of a lot of longtime friendships and my family. Roger Sterling once told Don Draper “You’re not good at relationships because you don’t value them.” That line always spoke to me, and I thought I lived by it, but this year I realized that I had lost focus of the people who I truly mattered to, and truly understood how much they matter to me.
So there will be no airing of grievances on this Festivus, but I’ve learned to never say never, and today is simply not that day.
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