Holidays are Traumatic

All holidays are traumatic for me even Flag day and Secretaries Day. The triggers from my previous life are built in and run deep.The only cure is to lower my expectations (impossible), walk a lot, and hug Lily the dog-god! Perhaps I should get down on all fours and share a meal with her out of one bowl, but she eats too fast. I cook and bake to stay warm while thinking of people struggling. I do not picture Normand Rockwell's famous Thanksgiving painting called Freedom from Want, I instead picture Picasso's Guernica or Hiernonymus Bosch's painting The Sounds of Gounod's Faust.