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Thanksgiving 2025

Thanksgiving has never been a holiday that announces itself loudly in my life; it doesn’t storm through the door with casseroles and laughter and the soft weight of traditions that never quite fit me, but instead it tends to drift in gently, almost shyly, like a warm breeze slipping through a cracked window on a morning when the world finally lets you rest.
And this year, it found me in a place I never expected to belong to: a large, open-echoing home on the coast of Tijuana, with palm trees leaning over the backyard like old friends, with a heated pool and a waterfall murmuring their own small prayer in the background, with four of the five bedrooms rented out to travelers and workers and wanderers, and with the ocean close enough that if I leave the patio door open, salt air drifts inside like it’s trying to be part of the conversation.

And on this rare day off — maybe the rarest I’ve had in months —something happened that shifted something inside me in a way I didn’t see coming: GQ came to visit my home in Tijuana for the very first time.

Her footprints on my floor made the whole house feel different, lighter, more lived in, as if she brought with her the missing piece that proves a place can slowly become a home even when you weren’t sure you deserved one.

THE STORIES I CARRIED FOR YEARS BUT ONLY FOUND THE COURAGE TO WRITE RECENTLY

If you’ve been following Music Travel Repeat these last few months, you’ve seen me publish story after story, pouring out moments I’ve held in my chest for far too long — moments that lived quietly in memory while life kept moving faster than I could narrate it.

But here’s something I haven’t said openly until now: every post I’ve written in the last six months is rooted in an event that happened over the last several years.

Life didn’t hand me these stories all at once.
They accumulated slowly,

  • like dust settling on an old guitar,
  • like postcards tucked behind books you forgot you packed,
  • like confessions whispered only to yourself on flights where the cabin lights dimmed and the world finally stopped asking anything of you.

The crying on airplanes — that wasn’t a one-time breakdown.
It happened over years of departures and arrivals,
each tear tracing the shape of a different truth I wasn’t ready to admit.

The concerts —

those weren’t back-to-back moments, they were mile markers on a long, uneven road where I was learning, slowly and painfully, how to return to myself.

The cardboard cowboys in Walmart aisles after concerts —those were the shadows of nights when I tried to find joy in the quiet aftermath of loud rooms, those absurd, sacred little moments that kept me human.

The stories about wrestlers and backstage trust —those spanned years of protecting people on nights when danger smelled different in every city.

The house I gave away,
the marriage I walked out of,
the peace I reclaimed —those decisions didn’t happen in a single chapter.
They were the slow, heartbreaking rhythm of a man realizing he was allowed to save his own life.

I wrote it all recently, but I lived it long before my hands were steady enough to put it into words.

THE FIRST TIME GQ SAW THE LIFE I BUILT AFTER EVERYTHING FELL APART

When GQ stepped into my Tijuana house —this big, warm, surprisingly peaceful place that feels like a resurrection I never scheduled —I watched her eyes travel from the high ceilings to the sunlit floors,then drift toward the patio where the pool’s blue glow spilled onto the walls like an invitation.

And in that moment, I felt an unexpected swell of pride —not the boastful kind, but the quiet, spiritual kind that comes from surviving things you once believed would break you permanently and finding yourself, years later, standing inside a life you built from the rubble.

She walked into each room with the kind of curiosity that doesn’t judge, the kind that simply wants to understand the story behind the walls, and as she moved through the house, it was as if she was stitching together the chapters she’d only heard me reference in passing.

It struck me then —not like a sudden revelation, but like a soft wave —that having her here wasn’t just a visit; it was an acknowledgement that this chapter of my life is real, that I’m not just surviving anymore, I’m living.

THANKSGIVING BY THE WATERFALL, WITH THE WORLD FINALLY QUIET FOR A MOMENT

We spent most of the evening outside, sitting beside the heated pool while the waterfall whispered its steady, calming song, and there was something sacred about that sound —not in a religious way, but in the way certain moments remind you that healing doesn’t always need to be dramatic or loud.
Sometimes it just needs stillness, warm air drifting in from the beach, and someone beside you who makes the silence feel like companionship instead of loneliness.

There was no turkey.

  • No crowded table.
  • No arguing.
  • No elaborate ritual.


Just two people sitting in a backyard in Mexico,letting the evening settle around them like a blanket.

And for the first time in years, I felt a kind of gratitude I didn’t need to force or explain —a gratitude that came naturally,softly,like it had been waiting for the right moment to step forward.

THE TABLE I CHOSE — AND WHY IT MATTERS MORE THAN ANY TRADITION

My parents asked what I’d be doing for Thanksgiving, and the truth is, I didn’t have the heart to explain that the version of me they once knew doesn’t fit neatly at that table anymore.

I love them, but we have always spoken in the language of hesitation, in carefully edited sentences, in coded emotional messages we pretend are clear. I own it. It's all on me.

And this year, after living through years of stories I only recently had the courage to tell, I wasn’t willing to sit anywhere I’d have to shrink again.

So I chose this table —

  • the one by the pool,
  • the one warmed by the November sun,
  • the one softened by GQ’s presence,
  • the one where I didn’t have to earn my place.

And maybe that’s what Thanksgiving is for people like us, the restless, the hopeful, the broken, the ones who are still learning how to breathe again: a moment to choose the table that doesn’t hurt, even if it looks nothing like the ones we grew up around.

IF YOU’RE READING THIS TODAY…

I hope today finds you gently. I hope you allow yourself even a single moment of stillness — a moment where the world stops demanding things of you and simply lets you exist.

I hope your grief feels lighter, your memories feel softer, and your heart remembers that survival, even ungraceful survival,is worthy of gratitude.

And I hope you know this, with the same certainty I felt sitting beside that glowing blue pool in Tijuana with GQ
while the waterfall sang a quiet song behind us:

The stories you lived may have taken years, but the healing you’re stepping into now is allowed to take its time.

Catch you in the chaos,
Haha

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Written By Haha Bailey

Haha Bailey has spent a lifetime on the move — protecting wrestlers, chasing concerts, and trying to make sense of the silence between cities.

Haha Bailey has spent a lifetime on the move — protecting wrestlers, chasing concerts, and trying to make sense of the silence between cities. Through Music Travel Repeat, he turns those miles into meaning, writing for anyone still learning to forgive their past. His stories are tender reminders that the road is long but worth it. Each word is a quiet homecoming for the ones who lost their way. Read The Restless, The Hopeful, and The Broken.