OnawaMiniya

As some of you know, I'm currently working on getting things set up so that I can leave my incredibly abusive alcoholic husband.

Today has been a tough day. He's now drunkenly passed out in bed - thank heavens - but the evening was full of him picking fights, making no sense, being angry, throwing his lit cigarette at me as he said "eff you" and stormed away (because I said I wasn't going to engage in a [very stupid] fight with him outside, which is where I was to avoid him, and as some of you know we live where he works, making it even more stupid to have a fight outside...), etc. The usual crap. And let me tell you, as far as abuse goes, throwing a lit cigarette at me is NOTHING. And I mean NOTHING.

So, PLEASE, those of you that have had the strength to leave your alcoholic partner, tell me how great it is. Tell me what you love about no longer dealing with that, and living with that, etc. Tell me the wonderful little and big things you now look forward to when you walk through your door into your home.

I keep visualizing living without him, how neat and organized I can keep my new place once I leave, how nice it will be to not have to walk on eggshells, and how wonderful the PEACE will be...just me and my sweet doggie

Paint me a picture!

I want to read this thread whenever he gets to me, so I can quietly smile to myself, knowing that soon enough, that peace will be mine!

I mean life is still life, and of course life doesn't become perfect just because you left an alcoholic; but it must be so much easier to deal with the stress of life without dealing with an alcoholic at the same time.

(Also, I suspect this would be a good read for those who are in very bad situations, good food for thought as far as what they could look forward to.)

Thank you.

Wishing you all well.

Peace.

Aeryn

Well...my story is a bit different than yours but I did leave (we are legally separated) and am about 6 months out (more accurately 6 months legally separated and 1 and 1/2 years not living together)...here's a post a made about it a few weeks back. I think the most important part was making the decision my gut told me was right for me (so no advice following) - once I did that my story followed and I feel 100 times healthier today.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...et-go-his.html

Stung

My AH has been out of our house for a full week as of today and although parenting two kids entirely on my own is challenging, the peace and predictability that I can maintain here without his vodka induced abusiveness is priceless. I like that there is no stinky nasty hungover-alcohol-seeping-through-pores smell in my house. I love that there are no arguments over practically nothing. I don't get anxiety when its close to time for AH to get home wondering if its going to be a bad night or a good night because that's entirely up to me (and my toddler, depending on if she's hell bent on not going night night.) Aside from the thousands of what-ifs that are still streaming through my brain once my kids are in bed, its very peaceful around here, relatively speaking.

suncatcher

It's been one year since I left AXBF. I moved an hour away and am renting a farm house out in the country. It is so peaceful to come home to my 2 cats and see the beautiful scenery out my windows. Everyday I see beautiful birds, deer, wild turkey or something interesting right outside my window. I sleep when I want, watch what I want on TV, eat what I want and when I want. It's been a healing place for me to detach and I no longer feel anxious and worry about what my AXBF is doing, thinking, saying or not doing. Sometimes I sit in my living room for hours and just read a good book, sometimes I listen to music. I used to be anxious when I wasn't with him but now I enjoy my own company and I am less anxious being all by myself! I do still keep in touch with him on occasion but I love having my sanctuary without him there. I see him on my terms and my terms only now. I wish you all the peace you so deserve.

TheMs

Tomorrow it has been four weeks since I left the home I lived in with my husband for the last 11 years. It happened so quickly that it still seems a little unreal when I wake up in the morning. I haven't quite "landed" yet. But I am slowly moving on.

So far, I have been working on myself to let go and to stop obsessing about what he may be doing or not doing. I am getting better at that. My shoulders are close to normal height again and I find myself thinking more about my future than my past, which is a huge improvement on my part. Some of the actual differences in my every day life:

I sleep more than 3-4 hours per night again
I don't wake up with fear of where he is and what he is doing anymore
I can work and get it done by deadline (I work at home and he used to refuse to let me work, I suspect to start an argument)
I can read a book if I want, play a game if I want, watch TV if I want - I don't have to sit and watch while he gets drunk
I can THINK
I have peace, nobody yelling at me, nobody calling me nasty names
I am not afraid anymore
I am not depressed anymore
I can be myself again

So yeah, my life has improved 100% since I left. And, as I get better at letting go of the relationship, things will improve even more.

Mightyqueen801

I had my alkie (and drug-using) now-ex removed by the police in September of 1999. I divorced him in March of 2001.

It was the best thing I ever did for myself and our daughter. I waited way too long, thinking that there HAD to be some way I could fix it and doing mental and emotional backflips trying to find that magic formula that would make him stop drinking and love his family more than booze and drugs. I had the power to do that--didn't I? <smack self in face>

My shrink later called that "grandiosity".

When I first tossed him out, I didn't think it was permanent. But once he was gone, I began to realize just how heavy the weight had been when I felt it begin to lift. I still remember that feeling these many years later.

I can open my shades/blinds/curtains on a sunny day and let light in without being screamed at. I can go to sleep at night knowing no one will poke me awake in the middle of the night screaming at me for not letting him see the bills--even though the bills came in THAT DAY before he even got home from the bar and even though he didn't pay any of them anyway--I did.

I don't fear my daughter or I being hurt in retribution for him not paying bookies and loan sharks (another fun addiction he'd adopted was illegal sports betting).

I can plan out my paycheck and not have the budget sidelined because "we" suddenly have to pay bar tabs or coke dealers.

I haven't had to go to eviction court to make a payment plan to remain in our apartment for years. As a matter of fact, I bought a condo three years ago.

I'm no longer embarrassed by someone else's drunken behavior at social events.

There haven't been any cracked up cars. There haven't been any DWI fines and payments (there have, actually, but they aren't MY problem anymore.)

He's been fired from a good job as a result of his drinking but it isn't my problem anymore.

He got wasted and sloppy at the dinner following our daughter's graduation from college in May, but I had a great time anyway because his new codependent girlfriend had to drag his sorry drunk ass back to the hotel, not me.

I no longer have those constant "can't-win" situations that permeated daily life with Drunk Jerk. Example: Made a salad, was told I bought the wrong Italian dressing because it wasn't "zesty" enough. Went out and bought the "Zesty" Italian dressing, only to be yelled at because this salad dressing was TOO zesty. I am not making this up.

I've taken up creative writing again. Had a couple of short stories and a few articles published and I am working on a novel (very slowly, can't quit the day job!) When I was married, I used my creativity to imagine what it would be like if my husband was dead--how I would pretend to be a grieving widow, what I would wear to the funeral, etc. That fantasy was often my break from reality. I imagined finding him dead at the bottom of the stairs, having fallen and broken his neck in a drunken stupor OR being diagnosed with terminal liver disease. Or being shot by a bookie/drug dealer/another drunk in the bar.

PohsFriend

If you love someone and leave because you can no longer tolerate the life you have because of their disease it is not wonderful, it is heartbreaking.
When I dropped my wife, drunk, crying, angry and shivering on her brother's doorstep because she would not agree to go to a hospital and I could not bear the thought of watching her die while I stood by powerless to stop her I was miserable. Telling her she could not come back unless she dried out and started to get well while she alternated between anger and misery took all of my strength and some I did not have but faked reasonably well. Knowing that someone who trusted me and counted on me to be the one person who never let her down or abandoned her felt that I had betrayed her and pulled the rug from under her feet tore my heart into shreds and left me feeling like the worst human being alive.
I wondered if she really would kill herself as she said she would - and the scary part was it wasn't manipulation and guilt, she wanted to die.

There was relief and shame and guilt and my brain knew that I could not be responsible for another adult who was hell bent on self-destruction and taking me down with them but I had a teenaged child to protect from that and could not allow her to watch that.

Had she not made the decision to get well and stay well I am not sure I would be over it today, 725 days later, but I doubt it. I loved her beyond reason and that was a problem when reason intervened and I made the choice to let her know that there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to welcome her back but she would have to come alone, the alcohol would have to stay behind.

There are a number of people here for whom life has gotten better, slowly, surely, one day at a time. I don't think I have heard about how great it is and don't quite understand that.

If you expect life to be great as soon as you are out of there then why are you there today? I hope you are just working up the will to do what you've already chosen to do and don't really expect it to be great. The drama won't stop unless you make a clean break and your emotions won't make a clean break if you love him.

If you don't care about him and will be able to walk away and not care whether he is happy or sad and won't be affected if he's devastated and miserable then OK, I suppose removing yourself from the stress will be nice for you but if you do care then it will be very hard, you will mourn, you will be tempted to relent and feel guilty for staying the course. Then you will heal.

Do you love him? If so then great is not likely. If leaving would truly be great then do it today.

Hawkeye13

Have you read the above posts PohsFriend?

Many of these people, and many others I've read on this site, do seem to be much happier than they were and pretty quickly when removed from the acute suffering they were in.

It is terrific you have had your situation work out, and we are happy for you and your wife. But you seem to generalizing your ideology to others. I don't think it always translates. Peace to you

m1k3

I have to both agree and disagree with PohsFriend. Leaving was heartbreaking and scary and lonely and terrible and GREAT.

It showed me that I could make decisions for myself. It showed me how to start taking care of myself and how to heal. It showed me that I existed as a separate person and not simply as a part of a sick, symbiotic relationship. It showed me that I wasn't a victim. It showed me how to see reality as it was and not how I wished it be. It was the first step in learning how to love me, something I don't think I ever did in my life before then.

All of these were lessons I had to learn from growing up with an alcoholic parent and then marrying my alcoholic wife. I have been gone now for almost 3 years. I have not divorced her and still provide healthcare and some support. I'm not really sure why but it feels right to me.

I do know that I will never live with her again. I have no trust and never will trust her again. I have been lied to so much and so often there is no way to rebuild any sort of trust and without trust there is no relationship.

So yes, for me it was great. I am sane, healthy, happy and content and life is good.

Your friend,

MyBetterWorld

I left September of 2010. Life is GOOD now. Life is PEACEFUL for my daughters and I now. The months immediately after leaving were rough...he ended up homeless because I wasn't supporting him. It was winter. It was cold. He broke into my house once. I allowed him in once to visit with the girls...then he wouldn't leave.
It was dramatic, heartbreaking. Looking back I don't know how I handled everything and stayed sane. The years I spent living with him, supporting him. I am so glad I got the courage to take the kids and go. We have a good life now and we are happy. If you have the means to go...If you don't have the means to go, go anyway. TAKE YOUR LIFE BACK!! YOU DESERVE A HAPPY, PEACEFUL LIFE!

Mightyqueen801

So much pain.

On another message board I get into arguments with a recovered alcoholic who maintains that we who loved alcoholics/addicts are really "volunteers, not victims". While there is a grain of truth in that, he goes further where he seems to say our injuries at the hands of the alcoholics really don't count because we could have left, and they are "sick" so they bear no responsibility for what they've done to others. I don't want to get the "is it a disease or is it not a disease" argument going again, because it never ends, but I am focusing on the behavior, and I maintain that we were not always volunteering to be abused.

It's the difference in the POV between the alcoholic and those on the receiving end of their behaviors, I suppose, and maybe we cannot see things from the place where one another stands.

But I'm glad this forum, this place exists for us who understand.

suki44883

Well, children are not volunteers. I'm not so sure I would last very long on that other board.

In addition to being a F&F, I'm also a recovering alcoholic. I think that guy is full of baloney.

JustAGirl1971

I agree. As adults in consensual relationships, we don't choose to be abused, nor do we choose the consequences we reap as a result of our A's choices. However, once that abuse occurs and we receive those consequences, if we don't change our circumstances (which is not necessarily the same as leaving or divorcing the A), we are choosing to stay in the situation we find untenable. And, I say that as the wife of an AH who is still in the marriage despite verbal, emotional, and past (mild) physical abuse. Despite the fact that we are in worse financial shape than we've been in our entire marriage (even though my salary is higher than it's ever been.) Despite the fact that my 15 yr old DS moved out of my house.

It's not at all easy for me to admit that I am currently choosing to stay, but if I'm going to get healthy, the first thing I need to do is be honest with myself. That means owning my choice. To be fair, it was initially a choice born of my decision not to choose. But, not choosing is a choice in itself. Now, I'm choosing to stay long enough to get to a point where I won't lose the house by having him leave. Hopefully, that's soon. If it's not, I think I'm finally nearly at the point where I'm willing to lose the house just to have peace for my remaining children and to get my other child home.

And, NO, saying that does NOT absolve the A of his responsibility for the situation we are currently in. But, him refusing to acknowledge his responsibility in this mess should have no bearing on whether I'm honest with myself about my own responsibility.

That said, due to the differences in each of our circumstances, we all arrive at this point on different time tables. I would never want to condemn or judge someone else because they chose to stay on the crazy train longer than I did. Nor would I want to be judged for staying on it longer than someone else. It is what it is, I guess.

And, maybe I feel like this because I see my own past failures, mistakes, bad choices, and bad behavior in all of this. For me to grow into the person I want to be (& have the peace I want to have), I have to acknowledge my role in this mess.

lillamy

I am sitting here two days before Christmas tearing up a little because I am so filled with joy and gratitude at the life I have.

When we realize at 10pm that we're out of milk, I have a husband who can run to the store because he's sober.

When I am sad and crying, I have a husband who holds me and lets me cry -- not one who tells me I have nothing to cry over compared to him because his life is so much worse and I should just STFU.

When I'm getting dressed for work and putting makeup on, my husband tells me I look wonderful -- I don't have a husband who throws a fit and asks me who I'm planning on f***ing since I'm getting so damn dolled up.

That's my life with a functioning marriage. A sane marriage. And for that, I'm grateful.

But I know that one of my fears before leaving was whether I would be alone for the rest of my life. (that was before being alone sounded one helluvalot better than remaining married to an alcoholic -- I hit that point and didn't care...)

So my single years? I've told y'all before how I was actively enjoying cleaning my house, stacking the dishwasher, doing laundry after I left AXH. I had no help with any housework -- but I never did. And not expecting anyone to help me, and not feeling like I was anybody's maid but doing all these things for me and the kids... that was a good feeling.

Single and remarried, I had and have the life I dreamed about when I was married to an A. Is it bump-free? Oh hell no. Kids are still struggling and in therapy and medicated. I'm still dealing with my PTSD. We still are short on cash and get head colds and such.

But we LIVE. We're LIVING, not just SURVIVING. We're ENJOYING things. Laughing. And not stopping because The Alcoholic comes home and suck all the joy out of the air.

Leaving may not be right for everyone.
It was for me.
I have never, not even for a fraction of a second, regretted leaving. Not one. Ever.

Aeryn

Leaving was the best decision I made in my ENTIRE life - it did not leave me devastated nor is it something sad and heartbreaking that I need anyone's sympathy for.

Someone can be living with their RA (I'm coming to hate terms like A and RA because they sound like they give "ownership" of a person to me but I digress) and be just as sick as they were before their A recovered.
On the flip side someone can also leave and be just as sick as they were before they left. Recovery and happiness for me has NOTHING to do with others...and I definitely don't base my worth on if I'm "married" or not and if I'm in a "relationship" or not....I used to and that's what kept me stuck.

Once I left BOTH me AND my XAH began living authentic lives - things that would have never happened had we stayed together, staying kept us in that holding pattern of "oh we need each other and our lives are based on this relationship rather than on ourselves". My AH is now in authentic recovery for the first time (I say the first time because I don't consider the times I helped and/or manipulated it to be authentic...those times were doomed to fail IMO...and they did)...I am in recovery and am finding myself again. I'm living my dreams that I lost trying to have a "perfect relationship". I've met new REAL friends and gotten rid of the ones that drug me down..especially the ones that "felt sorry" for me and "tried to give advice and help". I'm still friends with my XAH (XRAH I suppose) but that's all our relationship is meant to be...I talk to him when he calls and will likely remain friends but nothing more. I'm dating, back to writing my novel (my dream), in writing classes, making new friends, in a new hip neighborhood, starting yoga in January, thriving in my career and looking for my next career move (I'm not too jazzed on what I do currently it's just monetary)...NONE of these things would have happened if I had continued to base my life on "having that relationship at all costs and trying to make it perfect." Oh and for the first time in a decade I am not dreading Christmas...I feel ok about it...got plans....not obligations but actual plans.

Point being my recovery has NOTHING to do with staying or leaving or how my XRAH is doing or not....and it never will. One way I know I'm doing better is I can trust my gut more...so I can easily see a post on SR for example that is meant to school me or influence me (ie unhealthy helping and controlling) rather than give ESH....and it no longer upsets me as I can't control other people...I just choose not to interact in those situations. Don't let anyone get you down or make you feel bad Onawa for doing what your gut says is right for you.

ShootingStar1

Loss is never great. No matter why it comes to you, loss is painful, unwanted, unwelcome, less than, well, loss is LOSS.

Part of what we lose is the bad stuff.

Part of what we lose is the good stuff.

And for many of us, the most painful part of what we lose is the possibility of all those hopes, wishes, dreams ever becoming real.

What we remember, cherish as the memories of why we fell in love with this person, is a stark reminder of what we can never have again.

We have walked away from a life that for better or worse, for good reasons and bad, compelled us, moved us, drew us into its web, sometimes nurtured us, but as time went on, nearly extinguished the candle of our souls.

When I first left, I felt the profound relief of being safe first of all. I hid in an unlikely town, in a quiet apartment with lots of neighbors who would hear me if I cried out for help. It was physical safety I sought first, and I found it. I began to find emotional safety first more by the absence of the abuse and stridency of living in a raging alcoholic's presence than by the presence of anything.

No one yelled. No one demanded anything of me. No one criticized me. No one threatened to hang himself in the night outside our bedroom door. No one required my constant vigilance to try and keep him alive, or to try and mediate the increasing acrimonious interactions he was having with others. Constant vigilance on my part was not required to try less and less successfully to keep my own being intact emotionally.

There was an absence of stimulus, an absence of demands, an absence of abuse, an absence of intensity, drama and chaos. I found great relief in this.

I walked by the ocean with my loyal impish little dog, and people in my new small city began to smile at her antics, and at me, and I found an absence of dread. The wind on my face with the breath of the ocean began to breathe life back into me, and I took pleasure in the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, the bob of my picture hat as the breeze caught it, the faint scent of beach roses in its wake. I began to wake up and breathe again, and begin to feel again.

Sometimes it was hard. I remember seeing a older couple, perhaps in their early 80’s, walking on the ocean boulevard, slowly, enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean, holding hands and swinging their interlocked arms as they walked so that in silhouette, they looked like one joyous being. And I cried for all that had been and all that wouldn’t be.

The winter was long and hard and cold and icy, as New England winters are wont to be. I got sick with bronchitis, walking pneumonia, and my quiet apartment became my refuge, my sanctuary against the onslaught that I had shut out when I left my home and my husband. My body, with the release of the tension that had held me together for so long, expressed the dis-ease I had held within for so long. And I struggled with the emotional toll that I incurred from bearing my prior life so long without being able to acknowledge its cost.

And I began to find solace, there, alone with my music and books and my always happy little dog. I cooked for myself, I wrote, and I began to heal emotionally even as my body began to recover. My grown children supported me emotionally wholly and with great generosity of spirit. I began to heal, to rebuild my immunity to devastation and desperation. I began to find peace and to reconnect to the spiritual well that I had drawn upon in years past. Though seemingly lost to me for so long, I found it still available and fulfilling.

I began to sort through the stuff of my physical and emotional lives, to sort out the debris and recognize the treasures I wanted to keep. And I began to re-form, perhaps “reform”, what was worth keeping and rebuilding my life around as I moved forward. The future began to have a place in my thinking.

The divorce negotiations finally moved after months of outrageous forays by my husband, and it seemed to me that he was finally comprehending that I had left, and I was gone. We had to work together to get our jointly owned home ready to sell, and I defied the good common sense of my family, friends, and therapist, and worked along side my soon to be divorced husband. He had moderated his drinking significantly, and had come to believe that his behavior had “been out of his mind” and seemed to feel genuine remorse. His wit and humor and good will were most prominent now, and he wanted me back.

People dear to me couldn’t understand why I saw him again; they saw me as the moth unable to stay away from the flame that would surely consume me. And in some ways they were right; each visit brought me back to the pain of the marriage and I felt again both the devastation of being in that marriage and the devastation of leaving that marriage.

But I have always been driven internally by a force that cannot be reckoned with and that compels me to understand so that I can be freed to be who I need to be. And going back and re-examining what had happened to me, and to us over the course of a twenty marriage at some core level deep inside me was essential and non-negotiable.

I saw him, now much less damaged, “less” alcoholic, if there is such a time-limited designation for someone who stays the course of alcoholism to try to regain something precious that they have lost; I saw him for who he was and I saw myself much more clearly as a player in this devastation we had wrought, and I owned my own behavior and I apologized for my part as did he for his part, and I did not go back.

He asked me to return, with great promises, in the flush of his greater emotional health, and it was excruciatingly painful, but I did not go back. Even as I worked with him and talked with him, the part of me that moves inexorably forward, was moving toward buying my own home in the community that had been my refuge, and is now my future.

I moved into my home in July and by September had gotten the last of the “keepers” of my possessions in my house. They weren’t necessarily what I had expected to take, and I am happy with the merging of old and new into what will be my foundation and refuge here in my new life. This fall I’ve had the repairs and renovations done to the house that I knew needed to be done when I bought it.

I’ve made trade-offs in many places. I gave up a dining room in order to keep my treasured piano, a gift from my beloved aunt who was a concert pianist, and I will play again. I gave up my perennial gardens, which had been a source of comfort and a way of nurturing in my former life, for a tiny lot in walking range in the city. I will make a tiny “courtyard” garden next summer, and take my former gardening time to earn a living as an artist.

Life still has its curveballs. In early December, I unexpectedly needed shoulder surgery, so I am confined to a sling and cannot work in my almost renovated studio for several months. So I have been taking this time as a spiritual respite and time to put the business bones of my art in place. I want to see if I can integrate what I have learned into the vision of my art.

More continues to process as I let go of more layers of who I was and what I did and how I want to be. I am still lonely at times, and I still cycle through occasional depression, loss, regret and pain. It is not as biting as it was, but it is still a progression toward resolution of loss and full participation in what I have and what I can create.

Mostly, I feel free, content, happy and invigorated. I am ready to re-enter the mainstream of life and make more friends and give to the community that has been such a spiritual solace.

This is, I know, far too long, but I have been through so many stages and changes since I ran away from my home and husband on July 4th 2012, and my hope is that this may be comfort to some of you contemplating or beginning such a journey. My early story is in a post on the sticky “What Is Abuse” at the top of the Friends and Families of Alcoholics SR forum index page if you want to see what propelled me out of my marriage.

ShootingStar1

Aeryn

An add on to my first post:

I didn't mean to imply my ex husband's alcoholism wasn't sad...more that it isn't sad, devastating or heartbreaking to not be in a relationship...I found that somewhere along the line I'd been taught by society that for a woman a relationship was her entire self worth (I also read things on this board that make me think that too sometimes) and that leaving is NOT a diminishment to a woman's life, accomplishments or self worth. In my case leaving cleared the path for both of us to get better...but that's my story.

Do I still have bumps in the road? BIG ONES...the difference is I am no longer so anxiety ridden and devastated by them...I don't thrive on crisis anymore. I still have an NPD mother (very abusive) who I just found out has cancer and I have to come to terms with how to deal with it...in the past I would be spiraling out of control...now with recovery I'm not, I'm a whole slew of ACOA/ACON feelings about it but now I know I can deal with them...when I lived with my active A husband I was insecure, desperate for perfection and unable to deal with pretty much anything....so leaving was a big part of my recovery and my story...but that's me.

suki44883

ShootingStar1, you have the most elegant way of writing. I love to read your posts and you have done AMAZINGLY well. You are such an inspiration, not just to me, but to all who read your posts. I am so happy for you, that you have found your serenity. (((HUGS)))

OnawaMiniya

Your response seems to indicate that you read nothing more than the title of my post, because my post answers most of the questions you ask.

If you'd really like answers to the rest, I'll be happy to give them, though I'd certainly have my suspicions about what your response would be based on.

Also, this thread was about what was great about leaving. Why their life is better off....that sort of thing. For said purposes of inspiring not only me, but people reading who could use a peek into this side of life.

I very much like hawkeye's response.

OnawaMiniya

Thank you so much, everyone, for the beautiful responses so far!

It's nice to read about coming out on the other side, and the peace that follows as far as not being abused over trivial things, well, just not being abused PERIOD, being able to create without it being destroyed by an alcoholic, revisiting your dreams (a couple of you mentioned writing...my dream too! I do write but I know it'll be far easier without this stress always hovering in the background), etc.

Leaving is full of uncertainties, unknowns, what ifs...such is life, I suppose! But to take that leap and gain some certainties....like, (insert something unbearable about living with an alcoholic here, no longer happening directly in your life), has got to be so freeing.

It will take me a while...but I'm excited to one day join this club

Peace to all of you and enjoy the holiday!

Take good care of yourselves.