Mother's oracle
Finally did my mother's oracle for her. I don't often get the chance to act as an oracle for anyone other than myself (not as though I ever throw myself out there and try to or anything) so its always interesting to see how it goes, how the impressions you get are transferred to someone else's life. Even when its someone I know fairly well, like my mother.
The answer could not possibly have been more clear if Hermes himself had come down and smacked me in the face with it. And I pretty much knew this was not the answer my mother wanted to hear. She really wants to be told that all will be well, life will put itself back together exactly in the previous order and things will go back to being what they've always been. When I called her she had gotten some good news that her job would allow her to stick around until May rather than be gone by February; if some business comes in and she can keep busy, perhaps the new boss will think she is needed after all and she can have her old job back. Then I have to go and tell her Hermes' advice was its time to move on, from the job, from the town, go somewhere new and make a fresh start.
Not just some random somewhere. Her brother Kevin is packing up his family and moving off to Connecticut and has said that she should move with him, he'll build her a house. In her depression over losing her job she was kind of half considering it and wanted me to question if the move was a good idea as well.
You could almost say my mother is pathologically afraid of change, she wants her life to always stay the same no matter how miserable it is. This is not the first time someone has told her maybe she should break away and make a fresh start somewhere else, she's been being told that for years by numerous people and she always brushes it off. I asked her, when she tried brushing it off again, to give me one reason why she should stay, name one thing tying her to Wayland?
I on the other hand could name many reasons why she should leave. All her kids are grown and out of school, so staying around for our sake isn't a big deal anymore. Every friend she's ever made around there is long since gone, she has no life, never goes anywhere or does anything. I may think Kevin is a complete jackass and I want nothing to do with him myself, but one thing that can be said in his favor is that he has always been decent to my mother, he spends time with her and acknowledges her existence which is more than the rest of her family ever does (she told me today that one of her aunts died last week and no one ever called to tell her; Geri, that relative I was dead set against even speaking to at my sister's wedding causing the fight between the two of us that I spoke of here, was calling family members and told Kevin's wife Robin, Robin volunteered to tell a few people herself and tried to get through to my mother a few times but no one answered the phone and she got distracted with some of her own issues; Geri of course called all the other family members Robin said she'd call, except for my mother. I told her again, her family are miserable people and they are definitely not worth the energy she wastes defending them to me); why would she want to lose the only family she can depend on and socialize with and be left behind with the assholes who cut her off for reasons no one can figure out? The only thing that kept her behind was the fact that she loved her job (which, though her execution date has been extended, is still no guarantee that she'll be rehired come May), from my own experiences of how these things sometimes work I asked if she thought it was possible that maybe her job was taken away from her so that she would have no more excuses. She's not sure what to think about all this.
It doesn't seem possible that life could ever get better for her staying where she is. She doesn't think life could get better anywhere, she thinks it will always be the same no matter what. So I ask her what's the big deal about moving then, be alone and miserable in one place, be alone and miserable in another, nothing changes except the scenery. And maybe there is a chance, never know.
It is a strange to have one generally hopeless person trying to convince another hopeless person to have hope. But maybe its reminding me of my own decisions that I have to make in my life.
I don't know what decision she'll end up making. I hope she doesn't choose to remain in a place where she hasn't been happy for a long time merely because its familiar, but its her decision to make either way.
The answer could not possibly have been more clear if Hermes himself had come down and smacked me in the face with it. And I pretty much knew this was not the answer my mother wanted to hear. She really wants to be told that all will be well, life will put itself back together exactly in the previous order and things will go back to being what they've always been. When I called her she had gotten some good news that her job would allow her to stick around until May rather than be gone by February; if some business comes in and she can keep busy, perhaps the new boss will think she is needed after all and she can have her old job back. Then I have to go and tell her Hermes' advice was its time to move on, from the job, from the town, go somewhere new and make a fresh start.
Not just some random somewhere. Her brother Kevin is packing up his family and moving off to Connecticut and has said that she should move with him, he'll build her a house. In her depression over losing her job she was kind of half considering it and wanted me to question if the move was a good idea as well.
You could almost say my mother is pathologically afraid of change, she wants her life to always stay the same no matter how miserable it is. This is not the first time someone has told her maybe she should break away and make a fresh start somewhere else, she's been being told that for years by numerous people and she always brushes it off. I asked her, when she tried brushing it off again, to give me one reason why she should stay, name one thing tying her to Wayland?
I on the other hand could name many reasons why she should leave. All her kids are grown and out of school, so staying around for our sake isn't a big deal anymore. Every friend she's ever made around there is long since gone, she has no life, never goes anywhere or does anything. I may think Kevin is a complete jackass and I want nothing to do with him myself, but one thing that can be said in his favor is that he has always been decent to my mother, he spends time with her and acknowledges her existence which is more than the rest of her family ever does (she told me today that one of her aunts died last week and no one ever called to tell her; Geri, that relative I was dead set against even speaking to at my sister's wedding causing the fight between the two of us that I spoke of here, was calling family members and told Kevin's wife Robin, Robin volunteered to tell a few people herself and tried to get through to my mother a few times but no one answered the phone and she got distracted with some of her own issues; Geri of course called all the other family members Robin said she'd call, except for my mother. I told her again, her family are miserable people and they are definitely not worth the energy she wastes defending them to me); why would she want to lose the only family she can depend on and socialize with and be left behind with the assholes who cut her off for reasons no one can figure out? The only thing that kept her behind was the fact that she loved her job (which, though her execution date has been extended, is still no guarantee that she'll be rehired come May), from my own experiences of how these things sometimes work I asked if she thought it was possible that maybe her job was taken away from her so that she would have no more excuses. She's not sure what to think about all this.
It doesn't seem possible that life could ever get better for her staying where she is. She doesn't think life could get better anywhere, she thinks it will always be the same no matter what. So I ask her what's the big deal about moving then, be alone and miserable in one place, be alone and miserable in another, nothing changes except the scenery. And maybe there is a chance, never know.
It is a strange to have one generally hopeless person trying to convince another hopeless person to have hope. But maybe its reminding me of my own decisions that I have to make in my life.
I don't know what decision she'll end up making. I hope she doesn't choose to remain in a place where she hasn't been happy for a long time merely because its familiar, but its her decision to make either way.