the rest of the family drama….

okay.

so. i found a lot of stuff last week about my "family of origin". that there phrase is in quotes because they are only, in my mind, tangentially related to me. the two women i am talking about are the blood sisters of my mother. one full blood sister, one half sister, i believe. my mom and her older sister were raised by their grandparents, their younger sister, my aunt l, was raised by the mother, my grandmother.

i talked a long time to my cousin on the phone. it was good. i’ve always felt a kinship with him, like maybe he and i were aliens in this world of dysfunctional bullshit. i feel that even more now, and the phrase "family of choice" is even more important to me.

when i was little, for awhile, both my aunts lived in the bay area. the younger aunt, li, lived in hayward and the older (than my mom) aunt (lo…two initials because both first names begin with l) lived in fremont. my mom used to drive us there for holidays, but not all of them. it seems usually thanksgiving but rarely christmas. i have more christmas memories of home than of either of their houses. i do remember though, that my aunt li used to take us in to san francisco on the day after thanksgiving to see all the christmas displays in the city. they were always amazing, my favorite being neiman marcus. i think one of the things that sort of hurts the most about this is that my sister, who is small and cute, had always seemed to be the favorite child of all our relatives. except my aunt li, who seemed to love me more. i have many fond memories of me with her, in hayward. she taught me how to bake. i remember being in her kitchen and sifting flower, trying so hard to not screw anything up because i didn’t want to make my auntie mad or do anything that would take away her good favor. this got me through many childhood angst moments, because her and my aunt sue, i knew, loved me for who i was. i was wrong.

my cuz told me that my entire life, his parents have disliked me because of my size. i am a plus-size woman, but not overly so. he told me how his dad used to talk about me, the horrible things he would say. i knew he hated children, but didn’t realize he also hated large people. the funny thing about this is that HE WAS FAT!! he had big ‘ole jowels that made him look a lot like a cranky basset hound. he was not a nice man. i had sort of wondered why i hadn’t heard from my aunt since my moms death, but knew she had her own hands full…taking care of her older sister, and then with her husband, my uncle having brain cancer and dying within a year and a half or so of my mom, i was sure she had her hands full. she told my cuz that i was a lazy slob. please keep in mind that i have not been around this woman regularly for probably 30 years. how she would know this is beyond me. perhaps from my mom…she told my cuz that my mom used to talk about how miserable things were for her in reno when she would visit them. cuz says that she probably couldn’t have stayed positive about things, being around them and in that environment. i don’t know what to think about that.

will it be wrong of me not to be terribly sad when both these shallow people die? my other aunt, lo, also hates me now, but i am told that this is because she feels that if i had taken better care of my mother, she would still be alive. have i mentioned anywhere else that my aunt li is a "devout catholic"? that makes me laugh on a number of levels, but i should probably just leave the fact as having been recorded here. i am saddened that people who don’t even know me, or know who i am bear me ill will because of their own narrow-mindedness. and that i share blood with these people sort of makes my skin crawl. my cuz was all up in arms and ready to defend me to his mother, and i told him not to bother. life is too short for me to be worried or allow my self-esteem to be affected by two bitter old women who don’t know anything about me and have chosen to form negative opinions of me based on gossip and their own need to rationalize their sisters death. it doesn’t seem to matter to them that neither of them were around as she was getting more and more sick. that my one aunt works for the mayo clinic and has done everything for the older sister, but did nothing for my mother.

i’ve been struggling with this for the entire weekend. i am so thankful for what i have. i am thankful that i have raised children that take people at face value, and appreciate people for who they are, and are not, i don’t think, overly judgmental. they are good people. i am ashamed of what i’ve come from, but feel heartened in the fact that with me, this insanity stops. may it not carry to any more generations.

peace, fleeting.

the joy of thanksgiving…

so, now, about the good.

i hope that no one thinks i am overly verklempt about the whole family business. i am sad that there are shallow, bitter old ladies in the world, but aside from missing an inheritance who’s value would probably be minimal to me at any rate considering what it might cost me to my soul, i am not all that bothered by what occurred. it’s all stuff i had a sense about, i think, it’s just that to have that sense codified hurts a bit. it sort of makes one go "oh, wow" in the way of meeting a casual aquaintence you start to converse with only to realize part-way through the dialogue that they are very racist or something equally repugnant. ew.

so, in the normal course of grocery shopping for a number of grown people, i ended up getting a couple of free turkeys. these came as my local grocery store was giving away turkeys under 16lbs if one spent $100 at their store. this is really easy to do for a weeks worth of groceries, so i got one 16 lb turkey and one package of turkey breasts.

d actually decided he was going to help out with the holiday prep this year, so he cooked the pies the day before and also remembered to take the turkey out of the freezer. none of you can understand how epic this is in terms of him actually remembering to do something to help out, i’m here to tell you =) he tries, but he has A LOT of short term memory challenges, shall we say.

my son showed up early, like 10am or so, which was pretty surprising to me. i think he’s really hurting and wanting to have family time. i know there is a sense with him, told to me by my husband, that he is afraid of letting me down because he is doing something that goes against my values with the army thing. he really doesn’t see that he has much choice, and i think he has nothing but choice. regardless, he is my son and i will love and support him. i just wish he understood that he could come home damaged for the rest of his life because of this decision. or he could die or maimed or emotionally scarred for life. as much as he tries to hide it, he is a sensitive person and he will not be able to remove that from himself, i do not believe. at any rate, he was there early and i was glad. throughout the day, always there were people saying "is there anything i can do to help?" always believing that a collaborative effort is better than not, i took them up and one of the perfect moments of the holiday for me will be the memory of my son and sister peeling eggs for deviled eggs on one corner of the kitchen island while myself and our room mate ashley were on the other side of the island, her chopping artichokes for dip, and me chopping fresh fruit and veggies for home made salsa. my daughter was there, too, getting ready to take over for ashley so she could do something else. it seems so much more meaningful to me if everyone can help contribute to the meal or the food atmosphere. at one point, we were reminiscing about my mom fondly. the cool thing about that is that it was with laughter and good will, which i know is what she would have wanted. while i am sure that a couple of us got a tad bleary-eyed, i didn’t observe any tears actually breaking the barrier to cascade down cheeks.

my sis had pretty much spent the previous week cleaning up the house. she sort of started to make noises about needing help with this when i pointed out to her that her and three other people do ALL their living in that room, d and i do none of it, so it didn’t seem fair to me for us to clean something we never contribute to the mess for. she got motivated, and it was very, very nice, and they’ve mostly been keeping up with it too. it’s a huge relief!

so, that was the essence of my turkey day. the house smelled fabulous, it looked decent, and the rest of the weekend was spent being leisurely, reading, watching movies, and enjoying each others company. there truly is so very much to be thankful for. life is good.

peace. soon. i hope.

good lord….

 i just wrote the entire history of my mom’s illness and death. for a cousin. because his mom now thinks i am evil. i suppose some folks need people to blame. it took a lot out of me. you can’t write something like that out and not relive it.

maybe i will post it here as a fav’s only or a private entry. not that i will ever forget anything that happened. i don’t know. i feel raw. and my heart and chest feel constricted and heavy. my eyes are red from crying and my nose is still running.

i still miss my mom, and it’s been almost two years. this is the season, the season that marked her last.

grief never ends, it just becomes tolerable as time passes.

peace.

beauty is where you find it…

pasted from http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

it was posted on November 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

some days….

 just feel overwhelming. i am there today.

i am still reeling from the weekend with my son. he was home when i got home from a beautiful and soul-lifting violin recital saturday night, having just seen midori and spent some amazing one-on-one time with my daughter. i had asked him to come by our house because he’s using our truck while his car is in the shop and it has jumper cables in it, and my sisters battery on her car had died.

he was talking about having gotten screwed over at work again. he works harder than a lot of people, he knows all the jobs, but he’s still considered a part-time temporary person and he was up for a full-time position and they gave it to someone else who’s been there less time and made less money. precisely BECAUSE they made less money, so they knew it would cost less to promote this other person. also, the other guy doesn’t want to utilize the educational benefit that goes along with full-time employment, which my son does, which would ultimately cost the company more, also. that does truly suck, but sometimes life isn’t fair. i know he knows this. then he was saying how his company are hypocrites because they talk about how important their employees are, but they don’t treat them well, or not all of them, anyway. i told him he should tell his company they were hypocrites and he looked at me like i was a child and said something to the effect of "just what am i suppose to tell them, mom?" well, me, i would tell them that, but i live and work in a place where it’s okay to be somewhat idealistic and that’s sort of honored here. there are still disappointments and shitty things that happen, but as i’ve said before, there is also a tremendous amount of freedom here. i am free with my thoughts and ideals because i can be. that’s a very important distinction.

i am in a better place with my husband, but it’s still tenuous. i knew when i met him and fell in love with him that i was marrying a soldier. i can’t blame him for being what he is, most of the time i think it’s charming and endearing; it makes me feel safe. he’s almost NEVER soldier-like with me, i get the other side, the tender side. he’s a good man, and being a soldier is all he’s ever known. it’s as much a part of him now as me. he’s been married to the army longer than he’s been married to me. i have to keep reminding myself of that.  

that doesn’t mean i want my son to follow those footsteps. the soldiering ones, not the tender ones, i know he has that, i raised him =) we always hope for better for our children, and i had hoped he wouldn’t have to make a choice like this. part of me wants to take what equity i have out of my house and pay for my sons debts and for his college, to keep him safe, to keep him near me. but that won’t teach him anything about dealing with the consequences of his decisions, that only teaches him that parents will always bail ya out. or does it? where does responsibility end and compassion begin? is it right or proper for me to take on more debt that he might be debt free? i don’t know what these answers are….

my son has some friends that are already in the national guard, and he’s going in with them. they are in an mp company that already knows it’s deploying to afghanistan next fall. afghanistan is not a nice place to be at all, that’s probably why we never hear about things there. that’s where the friends that we’ve had killed have been killed, in the majority.

my nephew is doing well, i got to talk to him on saturday. he will graduate from boot camp this coming thursday, the 20th. he made it through. he was concerned about the run because he injured his foot. but he made it…he got the minimum number of points, but he passed, which was what we were worried about. i asked him if there was any way he could still not make it and he said pretty much only by getting into a fist fight would he not finish. he told me that he sort of wishes he had chosen national guard instead of active duty, but now, he’s there, and signed up for active duty. but, once he serves his time, he can transition to national guard. they’ve told him it’s hard, but that’s not strictly true, they just want him to think that.

it feels good to write.

there is some drama going on with the fire group, too, but that should be it’s own post. i think this is enough for now.

i am scared for my son, and feel powerless.

i wish i could make him understand. violence begets violence, and when it comes to violence and choosing to inflict it, in my mind, there is ALWAYS a choice.

i wish he thought so.

no peace.

feeling betrayed….

most of the time, it’s pretty easy for me to go through life knowing that some of the people that are closest to me don’t share some of the values i do. to me, it seems there is a decided lack of compassion on the other end of my marriage. this person lives in a very dog-eat-dog world, which is generally fine with me because it doesn’t effect me overly much.

my son is thinking of joining the national guard. he is being sent to oakland next week for his physical stuff. he’s an adult now, and the rational part of my brain knows that he now has to make his own decisions. but he has these romantic notions about what war and life are like that i know are not true. he wants the adventure, he wants to get out of our town. much of his current predicament is a result of his own poor choices. he had a 10,000 scholarship, in essence, and he blew it. he was more interested in partying than he was in doing well in college. he also owes the college a bunch of money from being careless with parking, so they won’t let him register for classes any more until he pays it and then he has to reapply for college as he’s not gone the last few semesters. he’s working full-time in a warehouse. he had to move after burning man, and he chose to get into a lease with a high-ish rent thinking he would have his girlfriend and two other people to help with rent. as they were moving the girlfriend broke up with him and said she wasn’t moving in, which essentially doubled his rent. he hates the warehouse because he used to work in an engineering firm and do stuff that he considers to be inifinitely more cerebral and important than stacking boxes. he has a second job at a mexican restaurant that’s been so slow he is often told not to come in….the economy. his work has screwed him over a few times, but the bitter part of me says "yeah, welcome to the real world, it happens". so he thinks he has no choice about joining the military. when he tried to get a car awhile ago, they told him he didn’t have any credit, so he went out and got a bunch, and now he has all that to pay off too. i tried to tell him that having credit is a double-edged sword….sometimes it’s better not to have, for having it means paying. i have always been a cash and carry sort of a gal, myself. i know my credit score has suffered for it, but i really don’t care because i don’t pay as much exorbiant interest and i keep more of my money than the average person.

the thing that has me feeling betrayed is that when i got home from a concert last night, my son was here talking to my husband. my husband is trying to talk him into going active duty rather than national guard. this seems like a huge deal to me. either way, if the boy joins, he’s going to war the way things are now. even with obama elected, people don’t understand that with the economy the way it is, he can’t bring all the troups home because there aren’t jobs for those men when they come home….it would cripple the american economy to have so many people home and unemployed. there are no jobs for them now, and it would make the market that much harder for those already here and unemployed also, having all those extra veterans in the market. besides, war isn’t something you just end, it’s been going on too long.

the hurt and angry and scared part of me says, of my husband "how could he?" all he’s ever known is the military, but it’s a different place now than it was when he was there, in active duty. he joined at a time when we had had over 20 years of relative peace. i saw a documentary called "the peace" recently that talked about the war, what led up to it and stuff. we have friends who’ve been over there and know how fucked up it is. we’ve had friends killed. it doesn’t help that my son has been speaking with some friends of his and is set to go into an MP unit they’ve already told him is deploying to afghanistan next fall. he is supposed to go to boot camp in february. he wants him to go active duty so that if he’s going to get blown up, at least he has a chance of seeing some other cool places in the world in between the times he is deployed to the war zones. hell of a theory, that. what’s a mother to do?

i told my son last night "there is always a choice when it comes to fighting or being a part of a war". he doesn’t see it that way. i am verklempt. he has to do what he sees as right, i just don’t want my son damaged forever for some idiotic sense of heroicism, some misguided sense of obligation or some false sense of "need". he does have choices, but to him all the other ones lead to misery. the largest misery could be the one he’s making.

i am unbelievably sad today.

there is no peace.

life, going on….

(Open Diary archive)

well, here i am.

no where near the entry a day, but am trying to write more often.

today is family day in georgia or where ever my nephew is and he has no family there to celebrate his accomplishment with him, but he made it, and for that, he should be exceedingly proud. i am proud that he stuck it out and was able to make it through despite aches and pains. i pointed out to him the last time i spoke to him that he’s pretty much spent the last twenty years of his life NOT being physically active. his body is bound to need some time to catch up with his increase in activity and motivation. i am sad that i can’t be there for him, but he knows we love him, so it’s all good. it would easily have cost 1K to go and see him, rent a car, a hotel, etc. i just can’t spare that right now. we talked about what he should do with the money he has now, i told him to get a laptop and wait until he comes home to get a phone, it would be less expensive for him to get a local phone, and he can ultimately do more with the laptop, i think. i hope he listens to me, and takes my advice when it comes time to order the laptop.

i haven’t spoken to my son since he was at our house on saturday night. i sort of commiserated with my husband last night and asked him why my son was mad at me, i haven’t done anything to him. he says he isn’t mad at me, he’s afraid of disappointing me because he knows he is doing something that goes against my values. what silly creatures men are….that doesn’t affect how i feel about him, he’s an adult, his own person, and can now make his own decisions. you don’t have to like what someone does, or the choices they have to make because of what they’ve done to keep loving them. i guess i want him to know that. i will probably send him a text message and let him know that. he has to go to oakland tomorrow to the medical in-processing center and get his paperwork done.

i am feeling more connected and close with my daughter lately. she went with me to a violin concert last weekend, and it was amazing. afterwards, i took her to a local place called the chocolate bar and we had some chocolate fondue with fruit for desert. it was a nice time. i love that kid. i love both my kids so amazingly much. it’s a lot of fun to be able to be friends with them as they go boldly into adulthood and not feel as much responsibility for them as when they were growing up. i’ll always both care and worry, but they are both beautiful people and i am proud.

i thought i probably ought to post something positive. today is a good day.

kinda peace.