It’s been quiet around here because the crap pot has been stirred. Let’s start with work. Again, with the impending wonder of will we have funding after June 30th? How much funding will we have? Will we have to cut staff? Will I have to continue to do a manager’s job (she of the purple velour pants) because she’s incompetent? Yes. But, at least I’ve officially been given permission to go ahead and take care of this part of her job. Now I can blaze through the tasks and get them done for the good of the organization or for great justice!
Personal life was also a pile of crap beginning with last weekend. My parents went to see my sister and brother-in-law in Florida. First time they’ve all laid eyes on each other in 4 ½ years. You’d think everyone could freaking behave for 24 hours, but alas. Screaming, tears and drama. A phone call from my sister and her husband that, in retrospect, seems a little less than genuine. My sister and I have worked through that and we’re OK now. Pathetic emails from my mother about how disastrous things have been. I’m sure they were pretty terrible. But, fuck that disastrous shit. Disastrous shit has been going on for 8 years with me because I’ve been excommunicated by my father. All those thoughts and feelings got stirred up by the screaming, tears and drama. I emailed her and said that I was not interested in talking to her about her disastrous stuff because frankly I’m tired of being in this windstorm of family drama and I’m going to support my sister and take care of myself.
It doesn’t help that my mother has basically sided with my father (really, she has to live with him so I get it—what I don’t get follows) and then expects me to listen to her talk about him all the freaking time. Whatever. I try to be polite but it’s hard. It’s hard when I remember that a few years ago I get an email from her saying she’s celebrating Independence Day by being free of the problem with my father and me. In the email, she totally missed the point that I’ve attempted to be nice to him and have invited him to things at our house and still have him stare right at me and not speak. There’s only so much of that one person can take and so he doesn’t get invited to our house. We avoid him and when forced to see him, treat him like that crazy uncle everyone seems to have…smile, be polite, carefully walk backwards so the animal doesn’t attack.
Then last year, I told her she could come to my graduation but he wasn’t invited—mostly because he has never once spoken to me about going back to school and has ignored me for what was then 7 years. I may as well of invited the neighbor four doors down or the wine lady I talked to at Kroger today. She tells me she can’t come without him because she’s already asked him if he would go. Really? Could the rose-colored glasses come off? There is no relationship anymore and she wants him to go to my graduation? It was my freaking day. Is it so terribly hard to remember that? Yes, clearly, still bitter that I’m just expected to take this shit and be OK with it.
Anyway, the screaming, drama and tears brought all of that back from wherever I’ve been storing it and I really don’t want to have to go back to that place again. For crying out loud, I didn’t eat dinner one night this week and I never miss a meal. Last night was the first time all week that I’ve felt better (dinner with friends; celebrating someone’s good fortune). Today has been pretty good. Just need to figure out a way to tell my mother to let some time pass. That I’m sick of it and can’t keep falling back into the years of conversation about who isn’t talking to whom and why and what do you think is going on? I’m tired and really can’t care so deeply anymore.