So It's A Holiday

I have a friend - and she is a good friend - but everything is so dramatic in her life. Good, bad - anything in her life - is described in such excruciatingly intense detail. Now to be fair, her appreciation of our friendship and opinion about me enjoys the same, shall I say "flair." But sometimes I just want to hear maybe she baked some cookies (not the same cookies with Italian imported butter that were served at "the president's (any president) inauguration." Or maybe she just has a headache; not a "incapacitating headache" that "may" require a doctor visit or trip to the ER or some other extreme intervention. Perhaps the sweater she bought was just a nice sweater: not a "$500 virgin wool from the highland sheep of Ireland" that she "got for $90." You get the idea. It's just all so much, too much sometimes, though most times I try hard to remember the advice I give my daughter regarding friendships:

Eventually you need to accept the person for who they are if you are going to continue the friendship. If you can't accept who they are, then you shouldn't continue the friendship.

So I try to "accept" her habitually over-the-top. to-the-extreme description and depiction of everything in and about her life. Some days it's just harder than others. Like today.

She texted me to tell me about the "wonderful" and "amazing" and "lovely" day she and her family have planned with friends for the holiday. They are going to "grill" and "sit by the fire" and "just enjoy being with lovely people we love and who love us."

You know, everything holidays with an alcoholic tend NOT to be about. Frankly, I had forgotten today was even a holiday. Other than the biggies - Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter - holidays aren't celebrated or even recognized in my house. We'd never (NEVER!) go away for a "three day week-end." God no! "The traffic!," my husband would say. "I'm not sitting in that crap all day." So it's not so much I am jealous of her "wonderful" and "amazing" day as I am saddened by the reminder that there will be nothing "wonderful" or "amazing" about a holiday in my house. There's little "wonderful" and "amazing" about life in the alcoholic household in general. Holidays just highlight that for us.