I am so grateful for the recently learned life lesson of “not my circus, not my monkeys,” or however it goes, to mean I cannot control everything, I cannot fix everyone’s problems and I am not “in charge” of my family’s lives.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving but parts of it was more like Festivus (Seinfeld reference) with the “airing of the grievances,” which I missed thankfully and was able to just focus on eating (like a boss) and ignoring the tension so my kids, husband and I could enjoy the holiday with those who also were fully present at the event and not in the midsts of arguing or a post-argument haze.

That is life with family, though — no one has a perfect one — we are all imperfectly perfect for each other I guess (in some ways). The real key, and something I wish I had learned many many years ago, is that it is not my responsibility to fix everything. It is not my role — my role is just to be thankful every day for what I have and learn to ignore the noise to focus on what matters.