Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Relationships

My re-birthday is a day to celebrate!

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The day this is posted is my actual re-birthday. That is, the anniversary of the day of my medical crisis, September 3rd, 2021. Here is yesterday’s post leading up to this post. In yesterday’s post, I rambled about this and that as is my wont. Today, I want to list my goals for my fourth year in my rebirth. I’m going to try to stick to that in this post, but we’ll see how it goes.

1. Finally write my damn memoir/murder mystery/novel about my medical experience. I have loosely held this goal in my head ever since I got back home from the hospital. I have tried to write both a memoir and a murder mystery (several times), but I just could not do it. Not that I couldn’t write; I could do that. But…

How do I explain this? Before my medical crisis, I wrote several murder mysteries. The way I would do it is I would come up with an idea in my head. Within a day or so, I would have the perp, the victim, and the general circumstances surrounding the murder. In another couple days, I would have the chronological events (the important ones) lined out in my head. Then, I would start writing and not stop until I was done.

I know the conventional wisdom is to write an outline before you actually start writing. I don’t do that. Nor have I ever held to a writing schedule. Well, I mean, I have a rough one–I write at night. That’s a whole nother topic, how I come alive at night. I do my best writing after midnight. But I don’t set a certain time to write. I feel constricted when I do this. I write when I feel like writing, and that’s worked for me in the past.

Now, however, it’s time to admit that my own ways don’t work for me any longer. I did NaNoWriMo last year (I’ve done it every year for a decade or more. I think I might have skipped 2021 or done editing, but I don’t remember). I had a good idea for…2022 or 2023? Again, I don’t remember which one because my memory is shit now, but one of them. It was a rom-com/murder mystery mash-up.

I knew the perp, the victim, and the other main people. I knew how I wanted to have the meet-cute. I just couldn’t make it work. In part because I hate rom-coms. I probably should have taken that more into account when I started writing, but I thought that made it the perfect thing for me to try.


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Compersion, not competition, part three

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In the last post, I ended by musing about how I sort of fell into polyamorous relationships. It was never my idea, but I wasn’t against it, either. In fact, if I had not been indoctrinated into the belief that monogamy was the only way to be, I probably would have gotten into nonmonogamy/polyamory sooner.

Side note: My mother and I used to have arguments about tradition. She would mention a tratdition I happened to disagree with (which, to be fair, was most of them), and I would state my disagreement. I know I should have just kept my mouth shut and played along–or rather, I didn’t know at the time, but discovered it through years of painful failure. The best thing to do is just nod and smile. If I can’t make myself agree (which is really hard for me when I abjectly disagree with something), then at least I can keep silent.

Theoretically, anyway.

This is something I was told that neuroatypical people have difficult with–lying. The thing is, it’s complicated with me. I can lie with ease about things that don’t matter to me. And with the social lying like, “No, that dress doesn’t make your butt look big.” Anything I deem as inconsequential, I lie with impunity.

With my mother, I will lie (or avoid the truth as hard as I can) when it’s something I really don’t want to talk about because it’s painful to me. She makes everything about her (or my father), so ifd I’m already in pain, then I don’t want to have to caretake her along with dealing with my pain. In addition, she’s the type that if something happens to you, oh, it happened to her as well–but worse. I mentioned that I fell and hurt myself once, and she came back with how she fell and dislocated her shoulder!

I’m not doubting that it happened, but did she have to tell it at that very moment? To be charitable, my story of my fall might have spurred her own memory, but still. She did it all the time. If I had a cold, then she had to talk about the cold she recently had.

Related, tangentially, she mentioned that she thought she might have autism (after we talked about my brother having it). I thought it was yet another way she was trying to glom on to other people’s lifestories as her own, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me. Tangentially to the tangential, my brother once asked if I thought my mother was a good psychologist. I automatically said yes, but then walked it back. I thought about it more, and I had to come to the conclusion that no, she was not. At least not overall.


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Compersion, not competition, part two

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At the end of the last post, I was talking about how the reach of family dysfunction is long and tortured. One of the problems with abuse is that it gets passed along, generation by generation. It’s the same with societal norms, actually. What we consider normal is usually what has been codified into society over the centuries. It’s usually smart to look at who benefits and take it from there. In the case of monogamy, well, society would fall apart if people didn’t settle down and procreate right?

I’m being sarcastic, but that is what many people believe. Look at the current crop of Republicans. JD Vance is obsessed with ‘childless cat ladies’ and how they run the Democratic Party. My hdude. Brah.

*Insert heavy eyerolling here*

I’ve said it before, but I’m going to say it again. I fucking WISH we had that kind of power. Do you honestly think if minorities had the powers they have invested in us, we would let them be in any kind of power/ability to gain power? It’s so enraging that they have managed to convince their base that the ‘libtards’ as they like to call us are in total control.

Again, if this was the case, do you think we would have let Roe v. Wade be overturned? Do you think we would let them anywhere near the White House? Or us in general? Do you think we would let all these anti-trans laws pass without slapping them down?

For decades, I was confident that they wouldn’t actually overturn Roe v. Wade beacuse it’s their bread-and-butter. They used it to stump about how terrible liberals were and how they needed more money to defeat us and our dastardly plans. I still think that’s true, but what I didn’t account for was batshit bananapants Trump becoming president. And putting really radical rightwing justices on the Supreme Court. Two of them who truly believe the bullshit and didn’t just mouth it for political reasons.

I was right, though. The Republicans didn’t really want Roe v. Wade overturned, but they had no choice. They were feckless in going along with Trump, and they are reaping what they sowed. I think there was a time when they could have put down their foot and drawn a line in the sand. They could have said, no. This is too much. I know many of them don’t agree with Trump, but they are too much of cowards/too power-hungry to say so.

Now, they have to ride-or-die with him because the Republican Party is his party now. And if they want to stay in power, they have to put up with him. At least, that’s their thinking. I think if they made a stand, they could take back the party. They might lose a few election cycles (in other words, it could take a decade or more), but that’s their only chance at reclaiming their party.

Damn. I went all over the place, didn’t I?


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Compersion, not competition

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I’ve been thinking recently about life. I know that sounds boring and pretentious, but hear me out. It has to do with family dysfunction, but maybe not in a direct way. I’ve been talking about my parents and their beliefs in very rigid (and outdated) gender roles. Because of this, I grew up thinking that I had to get married and have children. That was the macro for my life. The micro was neverending ‘thou shalt nots’ that grew increasingly restrictive.

Thou shalt not climb trees.
Thou shall not sit with your legs spread.
Thou shall not laugh too loudly.
Thou shall not show any negative emotion.
Thou SHALL tend to everyone’s needs around you.
Thou SHALL take less than your share so that the boys/men around you can have more.
Thou shall not have any wants or needs, come to think of it.
Thou shall just smile prettily and do what you’ve been told.

In general, I was not supposed to be a human being with wants and needs.

In addition, my mother made it clear that I was to go to college, meet a nice boy, settle down, and have children. All by the time I was 26. The timeline wasn’t something she expressly said, but the rest of it? Well, maybe not Explicitly said, but very clearly underscored in everything she said and did. The college thing was very clear. It seems strange that she would be so insistent that a female child go to college because that is emphatically not a thing in Taiwanese society, but her mother was very forward thinking on education. She was the first woman to graduate from a certain college in Japan, which is surprising that she went at all.

People contain multitudes! Even rampant internalized sexism misogynists can be progressive in some ways. At any rate, my mother made me take all sorts of–you know what? Tiger mother is a thing, and it probably has something to do with the East Asian belief that you’re a piece of shit no matter what. That’s East Asian parenting for you. Never tell your kids that they are doing anything well. It’ll make their heads swell.

My motehr also believed that you should be doing something every minute of the day. I was a dreamer and preferred to read than to do an activity. I started dance classes at two when my mother noticed that I could do a somersault by one. I was too young for classes, but she somehow convinced the teachers to take me (probably with her unparalell ability to nag someone into submission). I started playing t-ball around four or five and taking piano lessons around seven (didn’t care for it). I’ve been playing ping-pong and tennis for most of my life. Don’t remember when I started playing either. Softball at seven, and then the cello at nine. I had quit the piano by that time, and my mother insisted I had to play an instrument. I liked the string instruments better than the brass ones, so this is how my brain went.


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Love in all its various forms

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Today is Valentine’s Day. I used to hate this day, even when I was in a relationship. It’s a manufactured holiday and one that has morphed into (in the het-norm) ‘Buy an expensive gift for your ladyfriend, otherwise you don’t love her’. There are just too mayn expectations for it to ever hold up.

Side note: That’s my issues with traditions more generally. They just cannot live up to the expectations. Weddings, for example. So many people put in so much time, money, and effort into planning their perfect wedding and then it never goes how they want it to go. Also, so many people say they don’t remmeber anything from their wedding. It always puzzled me because it’s just one day whereas a marriage, presumably, will be for the rest of one’s life. (In theory, anyway.)

Side note to the side note: I read an article many moons ago about how everyone these days is entitled to a starter marriage, as it were. Meaning one marriage that ended in divorce. They made a convincing case for it, including the fact that people live so much longer these days. (Which, not exactly true, but let’s go with it.)

To which I say, “Why restrict yourself to one person?” I am someone who does better when I am not in a monogamous relationship. I think it’s because I don’t feel pressured to be the one and only (read, doing all the emotional support). I get way too focused on the other person in a monogamous relationship.

Anyway. back to Valentine’s Day. When I was working at the county, my boss came in on V-Day in a terrible mood. She showed me a new leather briefcase she had, and it was really nice. Soft, supple, and obviously top quality. It turned out that her husband had given it to her for V-Day. I thought it was a lovely present! Her old briefcase had been in tatters.

She was furious because she wanted a tennis bracelet. She had left out magazines opened to tennis bracelet advertisements around the house, hoping he would get the hint.

I didn’t say this to her (because she was my boss), but I thought she was being ridiculous. First of all, she was a grown woman who could buy her own tennis bracelet. Secondly, if that’s what she really wanted from him, she should have just told him. Yes, I know it’s not as romantic, but depending on him to take in context clues was risky on her part. Thirdly, his actual gift was thoughtful. He had noticed that her old briefcase was falling apart and got her a really nice new one.

I get that some people don’t want something practical, so I can’t totally blame her for that. But again, if she really wanted the tennis bracelet, she should have simply told him.


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What am I thankful for?

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It is Thanksgiving today. I don’t celebrate, but I don’t mind thinking about what I’m grateful for. My brother is having his dinner tomorrow, and I had been planning on going. for the first time in several year. Obviously, in part because of the pandemic, but also because, quite frankly, his (now ex) wife made everything so unpleasant.

She sat around with her face looking like she was sucking on a lemon. It was clear that she was not enjoying herself and that she wished everyone was not there. That may or may not include her children.

She was Shrodinger’s asshole in that you never knew when she was going to snipe at you and for what. I have said in the past that living with my father was like living with an alcoholic. We had to tiptoe around him and his moods, always on edge that he was going to take offense at something or the other.

It’s a truism that we marry our parent, especially the one with whom we have difficulty. My brother married someone who was the combination of both our parents. From my mother–the crippling anxiety that made her question everything and averyone. Except in my mother’s case, it just made her really annoying in that she constantly questioned everything and everyone. She did not trust her own opinion on anything–and she had to ask so many people what they think (while not listening to anyone).

Ian commented to me once that she really didn’t listen to my opinion, did she? No, she did not. It wasn’t because sof me, though. Well, not exactly. Yes, she was sexist in that she trusted men’s opinions more than non-men people’s opinions. So, yes, it was partly that. And because I was the baby. But it was also (in this case) because she had to ask at least two people about everything, and when she was here, she was in the house with me. So I was the first person she was talking to. Then she would call my brother, and he would be the second person she would talk to.

She couldn’t just make a decision on her own, oh, no. That would just not do.

Another example of her anxiety. She had a shirt shipped here. Fine, right? All she had to do was let me know, and I would bring it inside. My brother and his family are going there for Christmas. He could bring it to her. No problem! Right???

It should not have been a problem. In fact, it’s one of the easiest things in the world. Delivery, I mean. I take it for granted, probably bbecause I do it often.


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Opting in vs. opting out

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In my life, I’m a very private person, edging towards secretive. I am where secrets go to die, and people know they can tell me things. I will talk about things with Kathleen, but she is also a steel trap. And Ian. Another steel trap. Other than that, though, I won’t talk about something someone tells me without their specific consent.

I am always an opt-in person. I hate websites that make me opt-out. I was just on one that has gotten worse and worse every year. And it maks you opt-out of getting emails and other bullshit. I know why websites do that, obviously. It’s inertia. They know that it’s easier for people to mindlessly click through than to unclick the checked boxes. That’s Marketing 101–and it’s Psychology 101 as well. Make it as hard as possible for people to opt-out. Or more effort, I should say.

In real life, I liken it to people who are an open book. You can ask them anything, and they’ll tell you what you want to know. Guileless is the word. I have no issue with that as long as it’s limited to their own shit. But, this is the problem with people like that–they are often open with your shit as well. I have had this problem with a close friend in that anything you tell her is going to be told to other people unless you specifically say it’s a secret.

In addition, she likes to be in on all conversations (as we all do, but she does to a bigger extent), so she’l throw something into the conversation even if it’s not hers to be throw in. She does it without thinking, and I’ve had to have a chat or two with her about it. I’ve also realized that I have to be careful what I tell her. If I tell her it’s private, she will keep it to herself, but I have to specifically tell her.

It took me longer than it should have for me to realize that because if someone tells me something, I keep it to myself unless they say it’s OK to share. It’s not my news so why would I tell someone else about it? It’s interesting to me to see the wide gulf between the two. I mean, there are gradients, obviously, but my friend and I are on the far ends of the spectrum.

I know that my nature is in part becuase my father is very secretive himself–maladaptively so. I have said this a million times, but one example has stuck in my mind all my life. It was when I was a teenager. A friend of my parents (a woman) called and asked for my father. I said that he was playing tennis with another friend. When my parents came back, I told my father about the phone call. He freaked out and yelled at me for telling the friend thta he was playing tennis with another (female, very attractive) friend.

I had no idea why he was so upset. If you think about it dispassionately, it was not a big deal. He and my mother were playing tennis with a friend. Another friend wanted to talk to him. I told the second friend he was out with the first. Nothing underhanded there, right?


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Unconditional love vs. reasonable boundaries

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While I was doing my Taiji routine this morning, I had music on as I was doing the forms as was my wont these days. It’s funny how the playlists that YouTube makes for me just includes all the songs I like with no context. So Rihanna is followed by Vienna Teng, who is then followed by a showtune. I’m fine with that because it shakes things up, but still keeps it in my comfort zone.

The song, Locked Away by R. City, ft. Adam Levine, came on. I want to stress that I like the song and think it’s a banger. However, I reject the entire premise of the song as being ridiculous, and it irritates me every time I hear the song. The song starts out:

If I got locked away
And we lost it all today
Tell me honestly
Would you still love me the same?

To which I always say, “No! No I would not!” In the context of the song, it’s easy to realize that the singer is basically asking for unconditional love and framing it as if his partner was unreasonable. In the video, she’s streessing about bills and he’s like, “You gotta trust me.” It’s clear that we’re supposed to think she unreasonable for nagging him about those pesky bills and should just assume they will get taken care of by magic.

Or by him robbing someone–which is how he ends up in jail. Look. It’s a song/video. It’s allowed to take whatever creative licenses it wants. But the bottom line is that she was reasonable to question him because bills need to be paid, and some vague dream isn’t going to do it. There are other examples in the video, but this is the one tha really irritated me.

It’s because I was raised by narcissistic parents who believed that unconditional love came with strings heavily attached. Or rather, their kids should have unconditional love for them, but not vice-versa. They added culture to it as in, “In Taiwanese culture, you’re supposed to respect your elders.” Which I don’t have a problem with, but there should be at least a baseline of respect for your children as welll, I would think. And if that’s too American, well, I am an American. I was born and raised in this country and do believe that every human being is worthy of a baseline level of respect just for benig a human being.

My last therapist worked with me on setting boundaries within my family. My mom didn’t like that therapist because as my mother said, “She doesn’t understand that in Taiwanese culture, family is everything.” My mother also said, “You and I used to be so close, but now that has changed” with the implication that it was my therapist’s fault.

This is incorrect. We have never been close. She doesn’t know the first thing about me. What she means by close is that she can dump all her emotions on me, and I will jsut take it. That is her definition of unconditional love, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She may not even realize it herself, but it’s true.


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I aM hUmAn

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I was talking yesterday about being able to fit in (which I can to  certain degree). And just about societal norms in general and how being the weirdo means that I’m expecing things to be suited to me. The upside to that is that I’m rarely taken by surprise when something terrible happens. I know that always being prepared for the worst-case scenario is probably not the most healthy thing in the world, but it does stop me from being as shattered as other people by things like the pandemic.

Here’s a little secret–the pandemic wasn’t terrible for me. It wasn’t great, mind, but it wasn’t terrible. I’m mostly a solitary person, anyway. The biggeset adjustment was attending Taiji classes online rather than in person. Oh, and since my medical crisis, I only attend one a week rather than three. I do want to start adding them back, but I haven’t been up for it yet.

I will say that I have been expanding my home practice quite a bit. Back when I first started taking classes, I had one a week. I could not make myself practice at home, not for love or money. That’s why I added a second class, to be honest. If I wasn’t going to practice at home, then I could at least make myself go to another class.

I can’t remember if I added the third class first or started practicing at home. I do remember that when I did start a home practice, it was only five minutes of stretches. It was sa weird that while I loved Taiji, I just could not force myself to practice at home.

It’s funny because I really had to make myself do anything related to Taiji in the beginning. It’s partly beacuse I had a horrific first experience with a teacher who was a sexual predator, a creep, and a fraud. That’s a long story that I no longer care to discuss, but it made me wary about my second go at it.

I was a brat, I’ll admit. In the beginning, I mean. I questioned everything my teacher told me, and I wasn’t always polite about it. I was raw and ready for a fight–and she was really patient with me. See, one of the issues I had with my first teacher was that he was full of shit. He had all these really lofty sentiments, but he did not live up to them. Also, he was creep. I can’t overstate this point. He creeped on his students and he was very inappropriate. He gave this big speech about how intuitive he was and how he would not touch people who did not want to be touched. Yeah, right. He touched me without permission, which as a Taiji teacher, I might have tolerated except he had JUST made a big deal about not doing that.

When someone does something that goes against what they explicitly said they were about, that’s a huge red flag. I stayed with him only because I had a good friend at the time who was so into the classes. I should have walked, but I felt protective of this friend. We had bonded over trauma, and I could not in good conscious leave him to the teacher I so clearly saw as a predator.

Until the day that the teacher as we were talking, reached over and flicked my hair behind my shoulder. My whole body recoiled in revulsion, though I kept my face perfectly still. I’m really good at that. Not reacting externally, I mean. The reason I reacted so violently (internally) is because it was so needless. At least with the  other times, it was barely excusable because it was with the intent of adjusting my posture during a movement/position. In this case, it was purely something you did to flirt with someone, and it felt so invas-ive.

I walked out of that class and never went back. I found out later that he was not paying taxes on the house he owned because he was claiming it was a church while he rented out rooms to his students. My friend was doing his accounting, and the others were doing various jobs for him.

In addition, he was dating a student. He was in his mid-to-late forties, and she was 27. Not that the ages mattered, but it was really gross. He was just a gross guy in general, and I remember that when he went bonkers for the movie The Matrix. He gushed on and on about how it embodied the soul of Taiji and how it’s important to step out of ‘the matrix’.

I was rolling my eyes as he was talking. Even though I had not seen the movie, I knew the basics of it–and it was hard to believe it was that deep. Also, it was easy for him to say that it was important to be outside society (above it, I think he said) and not get involved with politics and such.

I wanted to punch him in the face. “Politics” is often a code word for social issues that don’t affect me when people like him say it. He was acting like he was above it all, which, again, easy for him as a white straight man.

I found out later that he started dating someone from a Caribbean island and started smuggling drugs into the  States fraom said island. It did not surprise me in the least. Also, that ex-friend started teaching his own classes and dating a student in his class. That wasn’t why we stopped being friends, but it certainly did not help. He was following in the footsteps of his mentor/teacher, and I was not here for it.

In addtion, he wasn’t even a good teacher. The mentor, I mean. I was in a basic class, and in the year I studied with him, he did not teach us more than half the Solo Form. He claimed it was because there were new people always starting, but that didn’t make sense. I mean, yes, there were new people starting, but those of us who weren’t new were students, too.

By the way, I finally saw The Matrix many years later. It was a decent action film with hotties, Keanu, Carrie-Anne, and Laurence. At least the eye candy was filling, even if the content was very light. But then at the end of the movie, Keanu dies and Carrie-Anne kisses him to bring him back to life. I stood up in the theater I was in and loudly announced that was bullshit. My then-boyfriend pulled me back down in my seat and murmured at me to hush. Fortunately, there were only like four people in the theater, but I was so indignant.

The whole movie is about being outside the matrix and living an authentic life. It’s about resisting society and breaking all the rules. So what do they do to resolve a plot point? Dredge up the hoariest chestnut of all time and have a kiss be the answer to all the problems.

I was done with that movie, and it just underlined how much of a crock my first Taiji teacher was. No idea how I got here, but I’m done for now.

Life is like

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I’m almost two years old. Not literally, of course, but figuratively. Nearly two years ago, I died twice and came back twice. It’s my re-birthday and is more important to me than my actual birthday.

That’s not saying much, really, because I hated my birthday for most my life. I was a depressed kid–deeply depressed–who was also filled with anxiety. My mother had such rigid ideas of what a girl could and couldn’t be, and I broke every one of them. She constantly told me that I was failing, even if she did not use that specific word. She put me on a diet when I was seven and told me I would have a beautiful face if only I wasn’t so fat. Yes, she said that to me.

I was seven when I realized I was going to die. It both terrified me and drew me to it. I was miserable being alive, and I wanted to die. I was just too chicken to do it myself. For many years in my early twenties, I passively courted death. Quite simply, I didn’t see the point to life.

Was this my mother’s fault? Not entirely. She was a product of her time and culture, too. But, she didn’t have to pass it down, and she didn’t have to be so unrelenting in her gender rigidity. Or rather, she could have tried to recognize that she was–nah. That’s asking too much. My mother has no personal insight. Or rather, she knows some of her flaws, but not others.

She knows she’s anxious, for example. She knows that she’s somewhat compulsive. But she does not know or cannot see that she has such toxic ideas about gender and relationships. She’s a Christian, which is a minority religion in Taiwan. She’s a fundamentalist to boot, which makes it worse. More to the point, none of her beliefs have evolved in the fifty-plus years I’ve known her. She still believes that the worth of a woman is what she does for her man. The man is the be-all, end-all, and anything he wants is of utmost importance.

I’ve mentioned that when my brother got divorced, my mother asked me if I was going over to cook and clean for him because he was ‘so busy’. First of all, he’s not that busy. Second of all, he’s the one who did most of the cooking and cleaning for much of his marriage. Third of all, his sons who are at home are 16 and 18. They can cook and clean themselves.

That reminds me. My father asked if my brother’s ex-wife went over to his house to cook and clean for the kids. I said, “Why would she do that? They’re divorced!” in an admittedly snotty tone. He said they did that in Taiwan, and I barely refrained from saying that it was because Taiwan was a very sexist country.

I refrained first of all because I didn’t know if that was still true. Secondly, it’s not as if America was a shining star in that department, either. Third, I wasn’t even sure that was true given how skewed my father’s opinions were in general. He is a thoroughly sexist person who only views things threw that lens, so I have no idea if what he said was actually true. I just told him that the boys were old enough to take care of themselves and left it at that.

Back to my mom. When I asked why I would do that? She had no real answer. I said I didn’t even do it for myself, so why would I do it for him? My brother, I mean. She had nothing to say to that, either. When I said that our relationship was different than that, that’s what made her snap. She asked in an ugly tone what kind of relationship was that.

I fully admit I should have just said it was none of her business, but she caught me off-guard. I told her that I was his therapist (which, true, but none of her business), and I refused to talk about it any more.

There is no way she would have said that if he was my sister or I was a dude. It’s only because he was a guy and I was female-shaped. We could have been interchangeable with any other male and female-shaped siblings.

It’s dehumnaizing. Realizing over and over that my mother and father don’t view me as an indivual person. They know nothing about me. And the very little they do know, they don’t like. At all. Can I list three things my parents like about me? No. My father likes my cat, but that’s about it. Here are the things they don’t like or know about me: taiji especially weapons, video games, writing, weight, lack of femininity, etc. I don’t think they could even name five things about me that wasn’t generic, well, that person exists.

They have a firm idea of w hat a daughter should be. Period. I realized this embarassingly late in my life–like in my thirties. I thought for decades that there was somethnig wrong with me because I simply did not fit what they expected/wanted/thought I should be.

Now, in my second life, I don’t care. I also know they are not going to change. They haven’t in fifty years, so they are not going to do it now. Finally, I can set aside any desire to please them. Not that I had much of it by the time I hit my forties, but even then, there was a voice in the back of my head saying, “Why can’t my parents see me?”

It took dying twice and coming abkc twice to truly clarify that this is never, ever, ever going to happen. And I’m fine with that. I’m not happy about it. I’m not thinking it’s a good thing. But it isn’t going to change, and I accept that. My parents are going to die the way they have lived–rigid, unhappy, codependent, and alienated.