Could it possibly look different?
If you told me at 21 (or even 16), 30, or 45 that there would be a St. Patrick’s day that I didn’t drink, I would have laughed in your face.
Holidays run deep in my family's bones. I grew up on Easter egg hunts, Turkey Trot 5k’s, and a greased watermelon contest in the pool's deep end on the 4th of July. We did Midnight Mass followed by epic buffets, neighborhood Halloween parties, block parties, and house blessings. And I vividly remember crying in college when I missed my first Presidents Day with my family and my Dad’s cherry cobbler.
And St. Patrick’s day was the Granddaddy of them all.
All of these occasions were steeped in alcohol, of course. And although I wasn’t imbibing until my later years, even as a child, I was highly aware that alcohol played a big part in these gatherings.
St. Patrick’s day always started with Mass, and then we went to The Dubliner, where my siblings, cousins, and I would spend the day Irish step dancing and asking the bartenders for cups full of maraschino cherries. We ran around unattended up and down 1st St NE, playing tag in our dancing costumes and picking daffodils from the street island. The adults would drink and dance and get louder and louder and louder.
This tradition carried on into my own adulthood. There are some St. Patrick’s Days I barely remember. Some ended in tears or arguments. And they were always, always loud.
For me, sobriety has come with some grief.
I am deliriously happy that I don’t drink anymore.
I am over the moon that my mornings are hangover free.
But sobriety requires letting go of all sorts of things; some were my family traditions. What would it mean to my family if I didn’t show up for Guinness and soda bread? How could I not show my face at the Dubliner when I had been showing my face there my whole life? This is what we did. This is how we connected.
Could it possibly look different?
Those first couple of sober St. Pat’s were awkward, and I’m sure there was a white lie or two told to ease the discomfort of maintaining my sobriety and still pleasing people. The real shift came when I allowed myself to be sad that those days were behind me and that my holidays would look different moving forward.
The permission to sit with that grief eventually shifted towards creativity, considering how I could reclaim traditions and start to make my own.
St. Patrick’s day is a pretty quiet day for me now.
I still go to Mass. I chat with my siblings and do a terrible Irish accent wishing them a top o’ the mornin’. I light candles (green ones) and think of the lineage of strong women in my family, including some who farmed fields, started a school, was an elected official, and dedicated their life to serving those in a leprosarium. I take down my great-great grandmother's platter, and my Nana’s depression glass pitcher and make dinner so I can use all these treasures they have left behind. And I toast them in gratitude with a steaming hot cup of tea in a Belleek china cup. And I listen to the music I danced to as a child and sit comfortably in how I celebrate today.
What seemed laughable and even insurmountable has become not just a possibility but a life-giving day of remembrance and thanksgiving.
We get to rewrite our stories. We get to rewrite our family's story. We get to do things radically differently because we are becoming radically different. We get to witness the impossible become our reality.
Keep going.
I love you,
Anne Marie