In yesterday’s post, I touched on how we humans make things harder on ourselves. This is true in general, and even more so with family dysfunction. What we grew up with was the norm, and if it was unrelenting, then it can be hard to break free. In my family, women were subjugated to men… Continue Reading
My mom called me last night and as usual, started the conversation by complaining. Wait. To be fair, she asked me how I was doing. She didn’t care, mind, but she did ask. Believe me. She does not care. I give her a bland answer, and we move on to why she really called–to complain… Continue Reading
In my idealized world, I would be able to express my opinions without getting o ton of pushback every time. To be clear, I’m not talking about truly reprehensible opinions such as “All (kind of animals) should be killed.” or “(Group of people who can’t change who they are) should not be allowed to live.”… Continue Reading
In continuing the discussion from yesterday, my brother called last night. My mother had called him to talk about my father. Of course. She mentioned hospice, but she thought it would hasten my father’s demise if she did that. To which my brother said, ‘Good’. Not to her, I assume, but to me–though not uite… Continue Reading
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned James Blunt’s song, Monsters, about saying goodbye to his dying father (who is still alive, thanks to a miracle kidney transpalnt). The song is powerful and makes me bawl like a baby–but not for the reasons that most people would cite. Many of the reactors I watched talked about how… Continue Reading
My father is getting worse. His dementia, I mean. My mother called last night, and she wanted to complain about him–per usual. I do not blame her because it’s tough to deal with someone with dementia, especially when that person was highly unpleasant in the first place. That’s not something we talk about when we… Continue Reading
This post is going to be about family. As I was musing about it, I checked in on Ask A Manager. There was a post with the horrifying headline of, “My father has been applying to jobs pretending to be me”. I thought it meant that he was applying to jobs for himself as his… Continue Reading
In the last post, I talked about my mother and how she was not going to change. Which means it’s up to me to adjust how I react to her. Before I ended up in the hospital, I had managed to find a faux-equilibrium. I say faux because I still did not want to deal… Continue Reading
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I have tried them in the past, but I find it too much pressure. It’s because the tendency is to go big and to go hard for a week or so and then fall off. It’s why gyms sell so many memberships in the first few weeks of… Continue Reading
It’s interesting thet things that get left unsaid. When I talk about my medical crisis, for example, I have no problems saying taht I was in a coma for a week, but I don’t like to mention what actually happened. Why? Because it seems…almost like bragging? I’m not sure exactly why. It’s partly because, and… Continue Reading