Friday, November 26, 2021

Looking for Things to Give Thanks For

 


My birthday (27 November) falls a day or two before American Thanksgiving (25/26 November) and given that we are living in a world that has been dominated by a nasty virus and the vocal group of science denying idiots, I thought I would try and celebrate my 47th birthday by trying to link the fact that I was born a few days after thanksgiving.

Well, I guess you could say that I have much to be thankful for. I was born in 1974, the year when the Vietnam War was still going on and Nixon had decided to expand the conflict in Vietnam by bombing Cambodia. So, in a sense I got lucky that whilst I was born in Southeast Asia that was going through a nasty war, I was born in a part of it that was a nice and safe place that was on the verge of achieving major prosperity.

Then, there’s the fact that my father’s business was starting to build up around the time I was born. Little did I know it then but I would become a beneficiary of the long success his business would enjoy. Dad paid for my education in the UK, both at school (Churcher’s) and university (Goldsmith’s, London). Whilst I have never played up the fact that I am a graduate, the success of my dad’s business did give me the title of “graduate” which is the standard entry level requirement of most jobs.

My parents, of course, remain a little guilt ridden over their inability to stay married. Both have admitted that they feel that it had damaged me psychologically. Whilst this is what they feel, I am thankful that I was born to parents who cared enough about me. Mum gave up a career and a home to devote them to time to ensuring that we would all have a home. I am, as they say a beneficiary of my dad’s success and my mum’s nurturing.

Furthermore, whilst my parents did split, my mum saw to it that my stepfathers would be good guys, who took care of me and never saw me as anyone different from their flesh and blood children.  

So, I am thankful that I started life out in a blessed position. I look at my working life as an example of being very lucky. Sure, in many ways, the career path that everyone expected of me was a total disappointment. It took over a decade for me to find a job where I would last more than a year in and as my bankers are prone to reminding me, my “earnings” are pathetic and my savings are virtually nonexistent. I am, as they say, a walking demographic time-bomb.

Yet, I’ve also been exceedingly lucky. I inherited my mother’s media contacts in the early days and so when I was probably the only freelance PR person with virtually no agency experience to speak off whatsoever, who could call the editor of most of the leading local women’s magazines and get put through. Sure, I didn’t have a job for the most the time but I could put food in my own belly.

There is of course the fact that I managed to get my big three highlights after I got sacked from my last agency job in 2005. I left BANG PR in 2005 but instead of floundering and dying, I managed to get the Saudi Embassy job during the visit of the late Crown Prince Sultan to Singapore in 2006. That was the year when I also got my byline in Arab News 16 times in a month because I was there to cover the IMF meeting in Singapore.

Sure, I never had a “career” in a sense of that what it means to have a “career” but I managed to do one or two things that people with solid careers didn’t get to do and I am thankful for that.

By the time I “settled down” into something approaching normalcy in my late thirties, I psychologically accepted that I would not achieve much more in terms of a career and as long as I could pay my basic bills, I could be content (which is admittedly a struggle).

Still, I try to find things to be grateful for. One of them is my health. I’ve managed to go from scaring a military medical officer to having a healthy blood pressure.

I celebrated my 46th birthday in a hospital. It was a gout attack that came along with a fever. When I strolled into a polyclinic, the medical staff insisted that I was put on oxygen:

 


 My 46th birthday

It was a combination of having to spend the week before clearing records of a group of people who were repulsive and then ending up in hospital that marked my 46th birthday.

I emerged from that and continued to function in 2021. Managed to attend an industry function despite Covid and for a whilst I didn’t get a big project this year, I did have a few side gigs.

 


 Emerged from a nasty visit to hospital

I don’t have a link with the divine, so I can’t claim that I know his reason for having me born around thanksgiving. However, when I look at my life and the fact that I manage to wake everyday and get on with doing things, has given me a cause to give thanks for the little I’ve managed to do. I leave that as reason enough be thankful.

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Maira Gall