It’s the last Huddle before Thanksgiving, so what are you thankful for this year?
Bridget McManus: I’m thankful for my amazing, loving and supportive wife. She really is my better half. I’m also thankful for Italian food, which is what I make to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Erin Faith Wilson: I am thankful for every person who has shown my wife and I support over the last few years. Every encouraging message, every listening ear and every shoulder we have cried on has not gone unnoticed. Thank you to all who have been there for us in some capacity. You have helped in more ways than you know.
Dara Nai: I’m thankful for my very hot, very smart wife who’s also fun, funny, and sane. We laugh every day and never get sick of each other. Also, I’m thankful for my gang of great friends who never cease to amaze me with their creativity, generosity and camaraderie. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really.
Lucy Hallowell: I have a lot to be thankful for in a year that has some seriously shitty moments. I have truly incredible friends who are there for me without question. But I am most thankful for is the fact that I am married to someone who over and over and over again shows up for me. She shows up when it’s hard and not very fun and scary. She shows up for my family and gives herself freely to help them. She’s an amazing mom to our girls and sets an example that I try to live up to. And goodness she’s just so damn funny and knows just when to pat me on the head and say, “Baby, why don’t you just go have an introvert timeout?”
Lindsay King-Miller: Oh, dude, if I listed everything I’m thankful for we’d be here all day. The short list: my incredible supportive partner; said incredible supportive partner getting pregnant after a year and a half of trying; my amazing family and friends; my cats; coffee with eggnog; and Sleater-Kinney getting back together.
Elaine Atwell: So this was the year I changed everything. I moved, ended my LTR, quit waitressing, and ditched cigarettes. And I am so thankful to my family for sheltering me, supporting me, believing in me, and driving me across the country. I am deeply grateful to my friends for listening to me and cheering me up. I am unbelievably thankful to have work that I love and that gives me purpose. And there’s a certain girl with a jawline like Superman and eyes like a frozen lake who I’m thankful to for making me want to be my best self every day.
Dana Piccoli: I am beyond thankful for my wife, Lana, who is patient beyond measure, funny, brilliant and a total hottie. I’m so thankful for my parents who came through big time for me this year. I’m also very thankful for Lexapro. I quietly started taking it a couple months ago to combat anxiety and OCD symptoms, and it’s been one of the best decisions of my life. It’s allowed me to release the tight hold I’ve had over my emotions and vulnerability for so long now. I feel like my most authentic self again.
Ali Davis: Last year at this time I was working a day job I loathed and couldn’t see any way out of it. I am grateful every single day to be freelancing again and for all the support I had in getting there. I ditched a job with a retirement plan and no one in my family freaked out on me. I’m grateful to have that wonderful family and also my fantastic friends who cheer me when good things happen and WTF with me when they don’t.
Both my cats were once stray kittens and always had a bit of that wary stray distance except for very specific times. This is the year they both really got the hang of extended lazy cuddling while I’m reading or sleeping or watching a movie, and it’s the best. I’m really enjoying that carefully earned trust. Especially when one of them whumps right down on top of my hands when I’m trying to write.
I’m incredibly, mind-blowingly, heart-burstingly thankful to everyone who kicked in for or supported or retweeted the fundraiser for my play. I honestly didn’t think we’d fund it when I put it up, but so many wonderful people helped out-old friends and new friends and people I hadn’t met before and even some total strangers. It’s been astonishing and wonderful and I am so grateful that I’m actually going to see it on its feet. I will do my best to do you proud.
Chelsea Steiner: I am thankful for my amazing fiancé Dan, who always keeps me smiling and laughing no matter what. And I’m thankful that the people I love are happy and healthy. Sidebar, I’m preemptively thankful for the Jessica Jones series on Netflix, sorry folks, I have a one track mind.
Miranda Meyer: I am thankful for so much. I’m thankful that I get to spend every day just thinking and talking and reading and writing about the things that most interest me in the world. (It’s stressful sometimes, but I could be stressed about so many worse things!) I’m thankful for my parents’ continued health and my unbelievably supportive, eccentric, accomplished, wonderful extended family. I’m thankful to live in the time that I do, because maintaining my various online friendships is a huge part of my life that keeps me even-keeled when things IRL may not be going so great. I cannot imagine my life in another era. And speaking of timing, I’m thankful to live in the golden age of television, and to get to not only enjoy it as a viewer but write about it.
Chloë: I’m thankful for my friends. They are delightful. As the years pass, I realize friends-more than work, relationships, family, whatever-are the people who love me for exactly who I am. No obligation. No fake laughter to get in my pants. No strings. No biding time until I fulfill my potential or mellow out. Just acceptance of me, for exactly who I am, even though who I am varies wildly.
Emily McGaughy: At the moment, I’m focusing my thankful energy on my wife and the family I gained when I married her. The McGaughys have recently experienced a great loss and, although the pain has been difficult-as one would expect, the way I have seen everyone come together is truly a beautiful thing to witness. My wife and her family have taken care of each other and supported one another even when it was inconvenient. I have never felt closer to or more proud of the family I married into. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this group of people.
Trish Bendix: So many things to be grateful for but, to keep it short, that I’m exactly where I need to be, doing what I want to do, with who I want to be with. I’m grateful for the opportunities I have and the people I love who love me back. I am grateful for queers, feminists, artists, writers, and liberals. And I’m endlessly thankful for AfterEllen contributors and readers.
Kim Hoffman: This was the year that I survived my Saturn Return and turned 30 and embraced the wild concept that I can and will and should love myself-and love myself hard. In the slow burning process of doing so, I’ve felt all kinds of highs and lows, but I’ve never stopped recognizing that even lows, and darkness, and really fucking tough, out-of-the-blue moments in our lives will eventually bring new insight, maybe even mountains of creativity or motivation to reach something higher and better. While so much of that has to come from within, I’ve learned so much from my partner, my family, and friendships changing.
I’m so grateful for the people in my life who’ve stretched my imagination, believe in me, push me in positive ways, and watch me grow while I watch them grow. It’s pretty rad when you can surround yourself by people who legit embrace you and vice versa. Let’s never stop being curious-curiosity is something I am constantly grateful for. Despite late night writers’ block, panic attacks and creeping doubt, I’m grateful for the stirring of the mind, the sturdiness of knowing what I want, and being chill with what I don’t have. I probably don’t need it right now.
Women all over the world who are taking a stand, unsilencing their stories, risking their lives, spreading awareness, seeking truth, dreaming big and educating our youth-now that’s what I’m talking about. They inspire me daily, and I’m so grateful for their voices. And last, I’m so, so, so grateful to be a part of the AfterEllen family, and to be involved in queer media.
Valerie Anne: I’m thankful for so much, so I’m just going to say this: I have had a terrible week, and I have never been more thankful for my friends, who will listen to me rant about things that don’t matter in the long run, send me pictures of my favorite celebrities to make me smile, threaten to bust the kneecaps of those who hurt me, check in periodically to see if things are getting better, offering me booze and snacks to ease my woes, and just generally be awesome and supportive. There was a time in my life where I almost forgot that smiling was not just a mask you wore, but could actually be a genuine response to something you feel inside. My friends make the bad days better, and thanks to them, never a day goes by that my heart doesn’t smile. Also for Tatiana Maslany. Amen.
Brittany Ashley: I’m thankful for the moments when men don’t talk over me in meetings.
What are you thankful for?
