But all seriousness aside...
It has been brought to my attention that I have not kept everyone up to date on the goings-on here, so here are the most important points:
POINT THE FIRST: Dannielle has moved to Lubbock to pursue her teaching certification, and a relationship with me. :)
Things are going great, she's got good grades on her education certification classes, and is lining up some oportunities to student-teach in the fall. This summer, she is living in my house, helping get it ready to move in.
"Whoda whatawhat," you say? Well that is explained in:
POINT THE SECOND: I am now a home-owner. I inherited it from:
POINT NUMBER FIVE ("Three, sir!") THREE: My grandmother died. My mother and I are co-executors of the will.
Barbara Ann Lacy Maupin had an unusual relationship with my family. My mother remembers her as a negelectful, selfish, passive-agressive woman who worked tirelessly to sculpt my mother into some kind of trophy-doll of a daughter and failed miserably, growing ever more resentful of her with each passing year for the failure. It came to a head in an event I sadly witnessed myself, in a hospital room, where my mother attempted to help us come up with ideas to make Nana's recovery more comfortable, but Nana insisted on having a different conversation, one wherein she accuses my mother of trying to be a wicked-stepmother-daughter and force her to live in the fireplace and do menial labor for scraps of food for the rest of her life (That is an exhaggeration, but only in the details, not in the scope of her accusations).
I, being the prized grandson, would have remembered her very differently through the lens of my childhood had it not been for the things I saw in the last year I was with yer. My childhood remembers a palace full of toys and summer trips to pizza buffets, vacation bible school, and the local public swimming pool. I remember summers of vacation during middle school that I somewhat regret now that I'm adult, wherein Nana allowed me to circumvent certain groundings I had recieved from my mother due to my grades. I suppose one could argue that it worked out in the end, seeing as I got through college with two Masters' Degrees by good old fashioned hard work, skill, and talent, the former two of which I did finally learn, but looking back now I realize how wrong it was from a parenting perspective.
but as a child, it was great.
But in the end, I saw her differently. I saw a woman who used to make dishonest bankers cry lapse into passive-aggression and emotional manipulation. I saw a woman who used to be a shrewed manager of resources stop taking care of herself for more attention. I saw the woman who taught me the lessons I held onto when it came time to outfit myself with tools ignore the advice of doctors and everyone else, so that she could cry wolf and get her family to come running. I remember one such event wherein she called me at work, trying to convince me that what she had was enough of an emergency for me to come over and call her doctor for her, but not enough of an emergency for her to call 911. When I did arrive, she was putting on her makeup to go see the doctor.
I am a believer that family takes care of each other. We all parachuted in to the tune of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries when Carrie fell into a coma. In the words of 90's hip-hop group 311, we rallied 'round tha family, with a pocket fulla shells. Nobody calls in a homie-strike like my family.
But every time Nana tried that, she wasn't on the same page as us. She wasn't trying to get better, or be healthy. She was trying to control the family by pressing our buttons. She didn't want the real love that comes with real help that does real good, she wanted the pretend love of being able to bask in the concern and attention the way she wore jewelry. See? Look what a good matriarch I am.
If there's anything out there I can give you advice on, hear this: the power of angels is not to play pretend with. Love is serious business. Love means you're willing to go into a CCU and hold someone's hand while a nurse comes in with an unholy-huge syringe and attaches it to something with a tube that goes up their nose, when you're the kind of person who has to be warned about fainting. Love means you sleep on a hard floor for 95 nights becuase any moment might be your last with someone you just married. Love means you uproot your life and travel across the nation to a hostile climate with a carload of essentials to gamble that you have a future with a man who has no ambition, who is happy being a cog in a big machine, knowing that you might never leave that hellhole if it works out.
The power of angels is not costume jewelry. I am here to witness that to you myself. Love is sacred. It is the force that gives me hope when my faith in God himself wanes.
"I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken 'hallelujah.'"
--Leonard Cohen
But enough preaching.
THE HOUSE: I have not drafted an executor's deed yet. We're waiting on the death cirtificate, and it's coming by slow-boat for some reason. My mother and I aim to get out of debt, and Dannie is living at the house helping us get it ready for an estate sale and habitation. We just got wireless internet hooked up. We'll be moving in in july.
I'll be fixing up the front bathroom, a shower that hasn't worked in 30 years of my memory. We'll be getting rid of a god-awful marble-top Island in the kitchen, which takes up an un-necessary ammount of room and is just ugly. I'll be keeping the hourglasses and oil-in-water kitch that I remember fondly, and maybe a few of the Christmas decorations.
We'll be getting rid of everything that has negative anchors for my mother or me, and dogs will be invited in the house, and up on all the furniture.
POINT THE FIRST: Dannielle has moved to Lubbock to pursue her teaching certification, and a relationship with me. :)
Things are going great, she's got good grades on her education certification classes, and is lining up some oportunities to student-teach in the fall. This summer, she is living in my house, helping get it ready to move in.
"Whoda whatawhat," you say? Well that is explained in:
POINT THE SECOND: I am now a home-owner. I inherited it from:
POINT NUMBER FIVE ("Three, sir!") THREE: My grandmother died. My mother and I are co-executors of the will.
Barbara Ann Lacy Maupin had an unusual relationship with my family. My mother remembers her as a negelectful, selfish, passive-agressive woman who worked tirelessly to sculpt my mother into some kind of trophy-doll of a daughter and failed miserably, growing ever more resentful of her with each passing year for the failure. It came to a head in an event I sadly witnessed myself, in a hospital room, where my mother attempted to help us come up with ideas to make Nana's recovery more comfortable, but Nana insisted on having a different conversation, one wherein she accuses my mother of trying to be a wicked-stepmother-daughter and force her to live in the fireplace and do menial labor for scraps of food for the rest of her life (That is an exhaggeration, but only in the details, not in the scope of her accusations).
I, being the prized grandson, would have remembered her very differently through the lens of my childhood had it not been for the things I saw in the last year I was with yer. My childhood remembers a palace full of toys and summer trips to pizza buffets, vacation bible school, and the local public swimming pool. I remember summers of vacation during middle school that I somewhat regret now that I'm adult, wherein Nana allowed me to circumvent certain groundings I had recieved from my mother due to my grades. I suppose one could argue that it worked out in the end, seeing as I got through college with two Masters' Degrees by good old fashioned hard work, skill, and talent, the former two of which I did finally learn, but looking back now I realize how wrong it was from a parenting perspective.
but as a child, it was great.
But in the end, I saw her differently. I saw a woman who used to make dishonest bankers cry lapse into passive-aggression and emotional manipulation. I saw a woman who used to be a shrewed manager of resources stop taking care of herself for more attention. I saw the woman who taught me the lessons I held onto when it came time to outfit myself with tools ignore the advice of doctors and everyone else, so that she could cry wolf and get her family to come running. I remember one such event wherein she called me at work, trying to convince me that what she had was enough of an emergency for me to come over and call her doctor for her, but not enough of an emergency for her to call 911. When I did arrive, she was putting on her makeup to go see the doctor.
I am a believer that family takes care of each other. We all parachuted in to the tune of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries when Carrie fell into a coma. In the words of 90's hip-hop group 311, we rallied 'round tha family, with a pocket fulla shells. Nobody calls in a homie-strike like my family.
But every time Nana tried that, she wasn't on the same page as us. She wasn't trying to get better, or be healthy. She was trying to control the family by pressing our buttons. She didn't want the real love that comes with real help that does real good, she wanted the pretend love of being able to bask in the concern and attention the way she wore jewelry. See? Look what a good matriarch I am.
If there's anything out there I can give you advice on, hear this: the power of angels is not to play pretend with. Love is serious business. Love means you're willing to go into a CCU and hold someone's hand while a nurse comes in with an unholy-huge syringe and attaches it to something with a tube that goes up their nose, when you're the kind of person who has to be warned about fainting. Love means you sleep on a hard floor for 95 nights becuase any moment might be your last with someone you just married. Love means you uproot your life and travel across the nation to a hostile climate with a carload of essentials to gamble that you have a future with a man who has no ambition, who is happy being a cog in a big machine, knowing that you might never leave that hellhole if it works out.
The power of angels is not costume jewelry. I am here to witness that to you myself. Love is sacred. It is the force that gives me hope when my faith in God himself wanes.
"I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken 'hallelujah.'"
--Leonard Cohen
But enough preaching.
THE HOUSE: I have not drafted an executor's deed yet. We're waiting on the death cirtificate, and it's coming by slow-boat for some reason. My mother and I aim to get out of debt, and Dannie is living at the house helping us get it ready for an estate sale and habitation. We just got wireless internet hooked up. We'll be moving in in july.
I'll be fixing up the front bathroom, a shower that hasn't worked in 30 years of my memory. We'll be getting rid of a god-awful marble-top Island in the kitchen, which takes up an un-necessary ammount of room and is just ugly. I'll be keeping the hourglasses and oil-in-water kitch that I remember fondly, and maybe a few of the Christmas decorations.
We'll be getting rid of everything that has negative anchors for my mother or me, and dogs will be invited in the house, and up on all the furniture.