Lately, I’ve been talking to quite a few friends that don’t really know what it is they’re supposed to be doing right now. Some are more sure than others. I’ll spend a little bit of time talking about me, and we’ll get back to the theme I’m trying to cover.

Sometimes when you get older you don’t get to do things the way that you used to do them. The last two Thanksgivings have been like that for me. I haven’t been able to go back home. A Thanksgiving without your grandparents or family is just… different. Especially when you’re a single guy who lives on his own. Last year was amazing. I’ll remember it forever. I just had another great one with some incredible people.

Anyway, planning for this weekend really started a little while back. I started talking to people to see what they were doing because I couldn’t afford the international flight I should have bought. Some people wanted to go camping, but flights back to Colorado were crazy expensive, and camping in late November is generally really, really cold. That’s when I started pitching a Brosgiving or a Pittsgiving, if you will. All credit to my friend Koopa for that one. I don’t know how I missed that. It’s super obvious

I asked a few people, and a few people got asked on my behalf. It turns out most people had plans for Thanksgiving to be with their families, or they couldn’t get away, or they had to work. I was pretty much resigned to going to my coworkers Thanksgiving which I wasn’t super excited about doing. It was going to involve a lot of dealing with children. I don’t mind kids at all, and his kids are actually pretty rad. They really like me so that makes me like them more. It was just more than I wanted to deal with.

I was more worried about talking to people I don’t really know about some fairly political things. I didn’t want to do that. If I’m going to have uncomfortable, preferably open and honest discussions, I want them to be with a person that I can hug at the end of it and know everything is going to be all right. It’s hard to do that with strangers.

After a few people let me know they wouldn’t be able to make it out here, but also let me know I could come to where they live I got a text from a certain baby turtle who told me he had bought flights. I was so excited, but also a little terrified, because this was the first Thanksgiving that I’ve ever hosted without someone present that hadn’t already headed up hosting a Thanksgiving. I guess that’s another step in growing up.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t the first Thanksgiving that I’ve hosted at my place. I hosted one last year, but a really wonderful woman did most of the work. Another one of my friends who had just visited a few cities on the East coast was also around, but he was pretty sick. We ended up watching the entire Mummy series on cable with commercials. It was actually very memorable. We watched my neighbors get into a huge fight. It was wild. We finished the night getting Thanksgiving jello shots at a bar near my place.

This was just the first Thanksgiving I had to be really on point with. I had to host this thing, and I didn’t want to let anyone down.

A few days before I started getting ready for it I found out another friend of mine was also coming. That wasn’t a problem, because most Thanksgiving recipes are impossible to buy ingredients for based on a two person spread. I was also really excited. He’s one of my favorite people. Three’s company, ya know?

We made a pretty great meal. We had all the staples. We also had cookies, goldfish crackers, Reese’s Klondike Bars, and Busch Lights. For three guys who’d never been in charge of a Thanksgiving before I think we did a pretty good job.

We stayed up late, and we made side bets on various things. We talked about what we were thankful for, we talked about our families, and we talked about our friends. One of us put on “The Mummy” and immediately took a nap (sorry about that guys).

Yeah, we did a few things outside of my apartment too, We went to the casino, we went to dinner, and we went to Mt. Washington to get a good view of the city. We went to Jack’s, and we checked out the Tiki Lounge. We bought scratch tickets, and won way less than we spent. I loved most of those things. I still hate the casino, but I’ll always love scratch tickets.

Those things will never be the things I remember from this weekend. I’m going to remember the little things. I’m going to remember cooking breakfast together and sharing stuff on the internet that we like while we wait for things to finish. I’m going to remember walking down to the river and having a long and needed heart to heart. I’m going to remember laying around hating ourselves and watching football all day because we were a little too aggressive the day before. I’m going to remember everyone getting excited because someone just put on a song that lit the room up. I’m going to remember being recorded the first time I rapped original lyrics to a beat I’d never heard before.

Those things are all important. I’m happy I got to experience them, but they aren’t really what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that I have great friends that do cool things. I’m thankful that I have an incredible brother with an amazing wife that I can’t wait to watch build a life together. I’m thankful that my parents are good people that I think I could be friends with if they weren’t my parents. I’m thankful that I have friends that feel like they can reach out and we can talk about real things.

We might not all know what exactly it is our future is going to be, but I sure would like to figure it out together.