It’s another morning after - but this time it’s just a food hangover.  I went to a 12 step marathon yesterday and ate my weight on carbohydrates and tryptophan.  Now I’m moving just a little slow.  My whole attitude towards Thanksgiving and the holidays is general has changed over the years and continues to do so.  Of course, when I was a child, Thanksgiving was the day that we had to get dressed up and sit at the kids’ table.  The food was good, but I remember it as mostly an “adult” event.  Christmas, however, was magical.  My father would start decorating the house immediately after the last drumstick had been consumed and we had one of those typical 1950 houses that was decorated with fake snow on the windows, a tree so covered in tinsel (that HAD to be placed one string at a time…or else), green and red paper garlands that wrapped all around the 10 foot double balsam that my father always insisted on buying.  The present started to add up and with a family that included mother, father, grandmother and five children, by Christmas Eve the loot spread halfway across the living room floor.  Christmas morning began by the children pulling straws to see who was going to wake my dad - he was not a morning person -  but after the deed had been done, the typical Christmas mayhem began and the house was total chaos for the whole day.

Much has changed since those early days of the “Christmas = Presents” equation.  I have spent quiet Christmases, I have been glued to my bed with the flu many times, I have know the excitement and joy of re-living my own youth through the excitement of my son when he was a little boy.  I have spent the holidays with homeless women whose Christmas surroundings consisted of a cot in a church  basement.  I even spent one Christmas incarcerated. I have spent many Christmases with my entire family of origin and the last four without them.  Because of my addiction issues in the past and because of the relationship choices I have made in the present, I am no longer a part of my biological family’s Christmas activities.  I was thinking about the holidays this morning and was realizing that most of my family was gathered together in a town far away and that no one called to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving.  Nor did I call them. As my journey continues on its own path,  I have  become alienated from many people who used to be very close to me and, at the same time, acquired the friendship of others who are slowly making up another family - this one is not related to me by blood, but is one that accepts me as I am, is non-judgmental and is there when I need them.  Their love is unconditional, they ask nothing of me and don’t have any agenda for our relationship.  They have one goal, and one goal only - to help themselves and me stay clean and sober and live a productive, healthy and grateful life.

Last night when I was with my new family, I felt loved, respected, cared for and welcome.  That’s a gift that you could never wrap in a box and put under a tree.  It’s a gift that you would never have enough money to buy.  It’s a gift that means more to me than any other gift I have ever been given.  I didn’t have to do anything to earn it.  It’s a gift that cannot be taken away.  It’s a gift that comes from the heart.  And it’s a gift that truly keeps on giving.

Life is sure an interesting journey.  We have losses, and then we have unbelievable gifts dropped in our lap.  We go through periods of anger so intense that we think we will explode, and then peace descends upon us like a perfect snowfall.  We think we are all alone and then the phone rings.  And sometimes we even get a new family.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior