Posts
Not my family
1. I started talking about my childhood Christmas in a previous post. I had a drunk father who got drunker at Christmas-what a good time!- and an angry non-drunk mother who worked harder at this season. This goaded my father who wanted a stay-at-home wife to have his dinner on the table. This made for a highly anxious little Joanna.
2. Meanwhile I was in a private Catholic School where I sang in the choir, and all things Christmas was good. Talk about a mixed message. I had nobody to talk about re: this.
3. For a long time when I came to NY I had a house in the country-Orient Point, LI and we had a lot of fun at Christmas, including a lot of...you guessed it, drinking. We also gathered oysters wearing tall rubber boots in the cold. A good memory.
4. I've finally started talking about this part of my childhood and my therapist calls it Trauma. I'm reading Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman . I read a few pages and cry, repeat.
5. Now my holidays are mixed holidays are Hanukah and Christmas as my beloved is Jewish. This sometimes works well.
