In PA. Why, Exactly?
So Tim says…
Why do you visit home so much?
I can understand where he is coming from. I’m using time that we should be spending together. I’m spending money that could be used for other things together. I’m leaving him with the pets to take care of.
He’s lonely. And I am depressed/down for a few days when I come home.
There are more positives, though. I really do look forward to coming here. I think I enjoy looking forward to these trips more than actually executing the plans.
I look at these trips analogously to a ball of yarn. The ball of yarn (my life) gets would too tight. The string gets pulled on too tight, and the whole ball becomes very, very tight. When I come back here, the forces that pull on the string slacken and the ball of yarn becomes unraveled (or at least loosened). Then, when I fly back home, the ball of yarn is put back together correctly, cleaner, looser, and better.
This time is a little more difficult. I seem more skeptical, powerless. I am relaxed and anxious at the same time. It’s going to take the entire trip, probably to unwind. Perhaps because the most emotional part of every trip, the family dinner, occurred last time impromptu.
My sister and brother came down for dinner last night. My brother has always been a little weird with the family stuff - he strives to be just like my father and antagonistic to my mother. I guess that is a good fit for him and if it works for him that is great.
My sister. A different story. She is a pawn of her boyfriend Keith, a redneck. He’s not a stupid redneck, but an intelligent butch redneck, the worst kind. I never see Sharon alone, and I’m convinced that I never will. And I am not ready to confront her on this. Not yet.
So, my conclusion is that my trips here will definitely drop off once my parents are gone. I am getting this relaxation ONLY at my parents house, not from the place itself. It seems like all of the places I used to go for solace are gone, or at least the feelings I used to get while I went there are gone.
So, with my parents gone, and no clear relationship in place with my siblings, there is nothing left for me here without them. I’ll come maybe once a year to visit friends, if that. I guess I could work to bridge my relationships with my siblings, but that is a mountain that I’m not ready to climb. And I may never be.
This is the ultimate silent sibling rivalry. I came 7 years later than my brother and 9 years from my sister. I was the younger spoiled brat. I grew up in a changing world, with way different relationships to the same people as them. I was closer to Grandma, and in a sense, raised by her as my mom went back to work once I started school and Grandma kept me during the summers. I was young and cute while they were out getting in trouble in their adolescent years. And my dad made a hell of a lot more money when I was growing up than he did when they were. Add to that the whole gay issue, the success issue, the moving away issue, and this is a perfect storm of insipient hatred that has not yet boiled over.
I can’t even write about this anymore. It’s like a mountain I don’t want to climb. It’s snowing and windy at the top, and the view is not pretty. I’m standing at the treeline along the trail, looking up into a vast whiteness. The reward in pursuing this is not worth the trouble. Therefore, I will not write about it anymore.
n - -- -- -- - - - -----
Outside, it’s starting to rain. The leaves are changing color and it is magnificent, but the gloomy sky is ruining their brilliance. This is the place I used to thrive. I decided that I was going to succeed, and to do so I had to leave. My answers were not here, they were elsewhere. So I did. I defied my parents, joined the Navy, and got stationed in California.
What an exciting time that was. Seeing the world, excelling in everything that I did, and proving everyone wrong that I was a loser. Even in my darkest hour, the discharge from the Navy, I showed everyone that I was strong and didn’t take shit from anyone. How brave I was. What happened?
I’ve still got my success, but I still have my depression. I’ve got sexual issues, attachment issues, laziness issues, and just plain life issues. I know, I know, you always have issues. Perhaps that’s my therapy. Just own the issues. Just realize that they never truly go away, just resurface in different forms in different times of your life.