Disappointed

My dad's sister, my aunt Linda, was supposed to come to Florence tomorrow to spend the day with me. We've been planning it for a month, and I was pretty excited. We were going to have lunch and then go out exploring the city (she used to live here, but it's been about 20 years since she moved away and there's been a ton of growth). 

I was really touched that she wanted to drive two hours just to see and spend time with me. After my dad died my relationship with my mom broke down to the point that we're now estranged, and it's been hard effectively losing both my parents. Lately I feel sad about it a lot. It's nice having one blood relative left who seems to care about me. I was looking forward to showing Aunt Linda my house and garden and letting her meet Marco, George, and Poppy, and then spending the afternoon doing fun stuff together. I requested a personal day off weeks ago for it.

Then I woke up with a scratchy throat and a tickle in my chest on Sunday morning.

So, you guessed it...I'm sick. I felt so awful yesterday afternoon that I stopped on the way home from work and got a Covid and Flu at-home test. Both were negative. I'm guessing it's just a bad cold, but it's really knocked me for a loop. I really hated and hesitated to admit I didn't feel up to the visit, but last night I finally let her know. My aunt was super kind about it. She assured me we'd reschedule soon and told me to focus on feeling better. She also said that she's flying to Virginia this weekend to visit her son and his family and it might be wise to postpone and not risk getting sick herself right before her trip. Tonight she texted me just to check on how I was feeling, which was really nice. We agreed we'll try again in a few weeks. 

I'm still taking my day off tomorrow since I've been feeling so bad, and I need to use up some personal days anyway. I'm not looking forward to it except as a chance to get some extra rest. Then this weekend is Mother's Day and the thought of that makes me feel even more low. My mom made it plain to me last year that my cousin and her kids are her family now (she calls the children her grandchildren) and that she doesn't need or want me in her life. Which was honestly just a relief at first, but as time goes along it's come to feel more like grief. 

Family ties

There's a small herd of deer that live in our neighborhood. Since we're close to a creek and a city-maintained system of hiking/nature trails, there's no shortage of wildlife to see, but the deer are the most familiar. They come out most nights as the sun is setting, and since we usually walk the dogs around that time, we see them pretty regularly. Usually they'll freeze if we walk past them and as long as we're not too close, they won't run. Even the dogs have learned to be very quiet so as not to scare them. 

Last year a female deer kept showing up in our front yard with two little fawns. It was the cutest thing, but I never managed to get a photo. This year, another female (or maybe the same one) has been coming around, but this time she has just one baby, and a young male is often with them.

The other night, I happened to look out the spare bedroom window at dusk and the little family was back! I grabbed my phone and took a picture, and although it's not very clear (taken on a zoomed-in phone camera, through a window and screen, at dusk...) I really, really like the shot:

Doesn't it look like mom and dad are kissing, with the baby between them? 

I sent that photo to my niece, Melissa. I knew she would love it. In return she texted me photos of an "owl family" who live near her home on Whidbey Island. 

We miss Melissa. She flew to the East Coast for a visit last fall and drove down from Raleigh to spend a day with us. We love her and it's so rare to actually get to see her in person these days, that I nearly cried when she had to leave after a few short hours. I'm grateful, though, that she makes time to see me and her "cool uncle Gregg" (her words) whenever she's on this side of the continent. We have so few family members left these days, and the ones we love best are spread out all over the country.

Half century

I have a big birthday coming up on Sunday...one of those years that end in an "0". It seems too crazy to possibly be true, but I'll be 50 years old! 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset about it, I just can't seem to wrap my mind around it. I've barely adjusted to thinking of myself as a forty-something and all of a sudden, I'm about to leave my 40s behind. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I'm sure it's like this for everyone, but whew!

I'd originally thought I'd have a big get-together to celebrate such a milestone, but it hasn't worked out. When I talked to Gregg about it, he asked if I'd mind keeping the party small because he's not feeling up to having a lot of people over and having to help host. He's got an oncology appointment looming next Monday where he'll get the results of a CT scan he had last week. This will determine how successful the radiation has been and whether he'll need further treatment or not. With this hanging over his head, he doesn't feel like any major entertaining, and truthfully, I don't either. 

So instead, I'm having a small party on the back porch Saturday night with just two or three close friends. Marla and Martina, of course, and a new friend I've made at work, Meisha. Later in the evening I might text a couple of friendly neighbors and invite them to walk over and have a drink or a piece of cake. I plan to have some good food, good desserts, and a few different drink choices (alcoholic and non). I bought some pretty string lights for the porch, too. It should be fun, and not too stressful to pull off like a big party would be. 

 

I do feel kind of sad that Gregg is the only family I'll have celebrating my birthday with me. My dad died just over a year ago, and I haven't been in contact with my mom since last summer. * I don't have siblings, although I love Gregg's. In fact, I invited his sister to come down on Saturday to spend the night and attend the party. I would love to have her (so would Gregg), but she thanked me for asking and then changed the subject. It kind of hurt my feelings, to be honest. Not because she's not coming, but because she didn't even seem to really consider it. 

Of course, Marla and Martina are like sisters to me, and I have an abundance of friends. I have a really good marriage. I'm grateful for every bit of it, and I don't have any right to complain. I try not to. I don't always succeed.

These are just things I'm thinking about as I prepare to turn fifty.

* It's better that we're not in contact. It's been really hard coming to terms with that, but it's true. It's sad and hard and I wish things were different, but I've started to prioritize my own needs and my own well-being. It's past time that I did.

Narcissists and boundaries

I've avoided writing about it here, but there's been some turmoil brewing in my personal life over the last few weeks. Since the day my dad died, I've had the trouble with my mother that I've known for years was coming. She's treated me very badly, worse than I'd imagined she would. 

In a nutshell, she's furious that I just inherited the last of the money from dad's family's estate. It's not a fortune, but it's a nice fat check, and for a person of my modest means it's a lot. My grandparents left it in their will to pay out to me upon my dad's death. My mother is so angry (that it wasn't left to her instead) and jealous that she's been really unkind to me. And that's putting it mildly. She hasn't shown me one ounce of sympathy over losing my dad; in fact, she started in about the money the very afternoon he died. She explicitly said, repeatedly, that she expected me to hand the money over to her. It's been really awful.

I've been so stressed out that I've been on the verge of panic attacks a couple of times. I haven't been sleeping well, and maybe worst of all the stress has caused my eczema to flare and break out all over my body, in places it's never been before. 

Yesterday was a turning point, though.

I've been reading a lot about narcissists and their toxic behaviors, and my mother checks almost all of the boxes. I honestly believe she has a personality disorder. So yesterday I decided it was time to set a firm boundary with her. I sent her a private message letting her know kindly but firmly and in no uncertain terms that I'm keeping my inheritance. (If she were in dire financial straits, that would be different, but she's not. She'll be able to live comfortably, if modestly, without any help from me). 

Putting it out there, defying her, and deciding to let the chips fall where they may was scary at first. I grew up with her rages and emotional abuse. But when I hit "send" on the message (that I'd spent two days crafting) it was like a balloon popping. All of a sudden, I felt the burden of it all lift from my shoulders, and I'm much more at peace now. I can't control her reaction or her behavior, and I'm okay with that. 

Unless and until she can treat me with kindness and respect, we'll just be estranged. I've probably just lost my mom as well as my dad, but any parent who treats their daughter they way she's treated me doesn't deserve to be in their daughter's life.

Does it make me sad? Sure. It really hurts. But I'm proud of standing up for myself. And that money that she's so greedy for? It's just a hair more than the amount I have left owing on my mortgage. By next month Gregg and I will own our home free and clear! How wonderful is that? We're absolutely thrilled about it and my grandparents would be so pleased. 

I wish my mother could be pleased for me, too, but she's just not capable of it. And I can live with that.

One website I've found valuable in learning about setting boundaries is the wonderful advice column called Captain Awkward. Here's a passage from one of her columns that I found particularly insightful when dealing with the fallout of setting boundaries with toxic family:

Let me leave you with one reminder: It’s not your job to fix every relationship or clean up every mess in your family, even if you could. (You can’t). Even when we’re armed with all the best advice, planning, strategies, counseling, support from safe friends and loved ones, safety plans, boundaries, kindness, patience, good intentions, etc. fraught family relationships can stay a total mess. Even when the worst of it stops (usually ’cause we grew up and got out), some people will never be what we need. Some people will never make us feel all the way good or relaxed. Some places will always feel haunted, and some situations will always have us double-checking under the bed or behind the shower curtain or between the lines for danger. The absence of danger is no less eerie! No monsters under the bed this time, but are the dust bunnies filled with menace? No monsters in the closet, just these wire hangers. The yellow wallpaper in the hall got paneled over long ago, observe the faded spots where the portraits of what looked like a happy family from outside used to hang. Don’t forget to jiggle the toilet handle after flushing and step over the broken stair. Oh yes, that sound you hear is definitely ghosts, The Ghost of The Childhood That Should Have Been likes to come out this time of night and wail for a while, she’s pretty friendly if you want to say hi! But come away, come away, you don’t need to repair or renovate this wreck, it’s time to hop in the rental car or catch your train back to where your small quiet room awaits. Come in, close the door behind you, nobody is going to knock on it. Hang up your coat, take your shoes off, fix yourself a beverage, sit in your comfiest chair, and open your presents:

• 1 dog-eared copy of A Wrinkle In Time with “I give you your faults” highlighted.
• 1 yellow post-it note with “Do less work to manage relationships with people who are unkind to you 2019” scrawled in teal glitter pen
• 1 “Bless This Mess!” sign, $1, slightly cracked, purchased in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart

<3,

Not Just A Captain, She’s Also A Member

Family stuff

Yesterday was a tough day for me. Emotional and depressing.

I went to visit my parents for the first time in almost two years. The first year was mainly because of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, but then last October we had a huge falling out. We've spoken since then, but the prospect of actually seeing them or going to their house was just too much for all these months. It's caused me a lot of stress and worry and depression, and I even briefly considered cutting all ties with them when things hit their lowest point. Even after they both apologized for hateful and hurtful things they had said to me, I didn't feel comfortable around them for a long time. I still don't, sometimes. Setting boundaries and protecting my own mental and emotional health has been so hard. I've felt really guilty about it all no matter how much I try to reason with myself that I'm doing the best I can. 

The main reason I finally decided to woman up and go visit them is because my dad's health is really bad. Really, really bad. My dad's basic personality is sweet and gentle, although rapidly declining health, myriad medications, and some mental health conditions have led to a few outbursts. Overall, he's still my dad though, and he wanted to see me. My mom and my relationship with her is much more complicated, and that's been the bigger source of stress for me. I was nervous about seeing her for the first time in so long but I decided it was time. 

Well, when I walked in the door my mom came and put her arms around me and started to cry. She held on to me for a long time and sobbed softly against my shoulder. It broke my heart. Just shredded my heart to pieces. 

My dad was glad to see me, too, and I'm really glad I got to see him. His physical condition is somewhat shocking. If he suddenly up and died today, I wouldn't be surprised-- that's how grim things are. What did surprise me is how much my mom's physical and mental health have declined in the past two years, too. They're both in pretty bad shape.

We had a nice enough visit despite how sad I felt the whole time. Mom cooked a roast and we had lunch together. Dad kept up a cheerful demeaner and made a few jokes. I admired the new fence they had installed outside and the neat, well-kept flower beds in front of the house. Then I told a lie and said that I had to be back in Florence at 3pm for an appointment to have my teeth cleaned. I'd promised myself that I'd find a graceful way to leave after two or three hours if I needed to, and I did. I intend to visit again relatively soon, though, and I told them so.

I didn't cry until I was in the car and on the road back home. 

Me and my dad, circa 1982 or so.

Quickie

 It's been a week since I last posted (holy cow, the days do fly) and I wanted to pop in and say hello to everyone. We've had a week of excellent spring weather. Over the weekend my husband, for the first time in his life, started taking an interest in gardening. I'd picked up a few more plants to put in, including some cantaloupe seedlings, and he helped me dig the grass and weeds out of a new bed so I'll have somewhere to put them. That's hard work and I was so grateful!  A couple of weeks ago we tore down a crumbling wooden picket fence on our property and salvaged as many pickets and boards from it as we could, and now he's planning to help me build a trestle with some of them for the melons to grow on. The tomatoes, peppers, and herbs I planted are doing great....knock on wood. Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop to 38 degrees and while that's still well above freezing, it's awfully cold. I hope I don't lose anything because of it. I suppose it's still early in the season, though, and small plants can be replaced if need be. 

That's a basket of flowers I got for my mom, since her birthday was last week, but now it looks like I'll be keeping them for myself. After not seeing her for almost a year (between the huge fight we had last fall and Covid I haven't been in any hurry to resume a relationship) I was trying do the right thing and spend the day with her and my dad for her birthday. We had plans to go out and eat on Saturday but she messaged me on Facebook at the last minute and made a weak excuse to get out of it. It made me a little sad, but more than anything I was just relieved. I'm not comfortable....at all...around my parents anymore, particularly my mother, and so I was actually dreading the reunion and its almost inevitable awkwardness. Maybe she was too. Ah, well.

On a happier note, I'm really looking forward to tonight. My book club is finally meeting again after 14 months! We're all vaccinated now so we can. It's going to be wonderful to see these friends again, and I've missed our club more than almost anything else this past year. I'm about to get off the computer and go make some guacamole to take along. My friends love my homemade guac and since this is our reunion meeting I wanted to bring something. We read and will be discussing This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. Here's a brief synopsis from Goodreads:

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O’Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Odie and his brother, Albert, are the only white faces among the hundreds of Native American children at the school.

After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole. 

I don't have time to write up a proper review here, but I can tell you that this book was wonderful. One of the best things I've read in the last couple of years. I highly recommend it!

Well, off to mash some avocados....back soon. 

Off my chest

Fair warning: this is going to be a deeply personal post. It's probably not going to be to everyone's taste, so if reading about someone else's family problems at length isn't your cup of tea, feel free to move along now. I'll be back to posting lighter fare next time. 

Here's a cute George picture to enjoy before you go:

                 

He was just back from a joyride with Gregg around the neighborhood in the truck. That's the face of pure, uncomplicated happiness.