Holiday From Abuse

I was sitting around on Thanksgiving Day thinking about all of the holiday traditions I left behind when I left my husband. Amazingly, there aren't any that I miss. I really did try to get myself choked up about my lack of traditional family time, but the tears wouldn't come. Instead, I ended up with a top ten list of the holiday traditions I happily leave in my past.

1.) His insistence on his family's traditional foods. That wouldn't be so bad except my family's traditional dishes were unapproved.

2.) His sinister moods and silences as he slithered about the house looking for things or conversations to disapprove of to the point of picking a fight.

3.) His complaints about what is on television. Those people should know that the hard workers of this country are off today and deserve better programming!

4.) His annual dire Thanksgiving warning about over-spending for Christmas with the implication that I don't know how to manage his money well enough to have a Christmas list at all.

5.) His refusal to help with the cooking, serving, or clean-up. (See #3 about the hard workers and what they deserve).

6.) His ultimate disappearance into the garage to drink beer and adhere to his demanding personal schedule despite having the day off to spend with his family, if he so chose.

7.) His grumpy return to the house due to me purposely timing dinner's completion in order to to screw up his momentum (for drinking beer and piddling in the garage).

8.) His perfunctory calls to family followed by an open sharing of his derogatory opinion of each person he'd just spoken to, except for his grandma who is above reproach.

9.) His trips to his locked closet to retrieve Jim Beam followed by the clanking of ice from the freezer and the pop of a soda can.

10.) My constant wondering of if and when he was going to blow up and let us all have it for a miniscule occurrence that everyone except for him found humorous.

This Thanksgiving, I celebrated a holiday from abuse - his detrimental presence is decidedly absent. I look forward to the entire holiday season because I now live a life of relative peace, and for that I am grateful.

I hope your holidays are likewise peaceful.