Holidays

Okay, today I kinda cried for a moment. I thought about the holidays. I was talking to Sporty on the phone and talking about Thanksgiving and the Jewish High Holidays and I just got sad. The prison allows visitors on holidays (well, federal holidays - not Jewish ones), but I won't be having any. The Feds try to put inmates close to home so they can get regular visits, but I'm being sent 1,000 miles away from my family and friends. I have absolutely NO expectations of anyone giving up their family traditions to spend a boring day sitting across from me in a visiting room. It is not even about that. I will be gone one year, just one set of each holiday. It will be okay.

The thing is, I missed a lot of holidays in my past. I spent many a thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, etc. alone in a casino chasing losses or possibly on a winning streak. I believed I had no where else to go. No one wanted me at their holiday festivities. I was alone and whether it was true in fact or not, I believed I was unloved. Most of my adult life consisted of holidays spent with strangers who knew my name because we played at the same tables night after night, yet we knew nothing about one another. We just needed our next "hit," the adrenalin of the next deal of the cards, the next win, the next promise of a life better than the one we are living.

When I stopped gambling in 2008, started recovery and addiction therapy, holidays suddenly mattered. I was suddenly around family and friends that invited me into their homes. I'd actually get more than one invitation at times. I started celebrating holidays with friends that aren't even my holidays - like Christmas and Easter - because my friends invited me to their family dinners (although the Jew in me confused the term "dinner" to mean 5 or 6 once when the Easter dinner was to be served at 2). I also enjoy giving and receiving holiday presents and hate that it won't be a part of our traditions this year! Holidays have come to be a part of my recovery from the "broken" person I was. 

This, of course, leaves me with just one choice, find a way to enjoy the holidays without visitors of family or friends. I shall. During the months of Nov and Dec, they increase phone time from 300 min/month to 400 min/mth. So, I can call people more. I'll figure it out. I guess it is okay once in a while to realize the realities of life in prison. Holidays really hit me today.