Holy Fucking Shit
The above in reference both to a) the length of time since my last post, and b) the current state of the Val-verse.
The latest is that my brother called my mom to complain to her about some of the stuff on my Facebook page. Go ahead and read that sentence again if you have to, slowly; take as much time as you need. My brother. Who is 33 years old. Called my mom. To complain about some of the "anti-Christian, liberal slant" stuff on. My. Facebook. Page.
And then she called me. Yes, I am officially in trouble, at 35 years of age, for being disrespectful, inconsiderate....basically for being everything my family doesn't want me to be. She ordered me to take it down. She pleaded, she verged on tears, she tried anger and worst-case scenarios, she tried to out-reason me, and finally played her trump card (and, I suspect, the real reason she called): my brother WANTS to have a closer relationship with me, but I make it hard by doing things like this, etc. etc.
You can probably imagine what I said in reply.
Actually I stayed pretty calm, because a) things have a way of getting garbled when they go through mom. No one in the family is permitted to talk directly to each other--all communication must be routed through her. This is supposedly done in order to avoid arguments (the undercurrent being that I am so damn difficult to get along with that everyone must approach me cautiously). In reality it ends up causing far more chaos, because things have a way of getting distorted. For all I know, my brother made a passing remark and she blew it waaaay out of proportion. She did seem to assume it was wildly, horribly mocking and blasphemous and offensive, whatever it was. When I explained a bit more about what it actually is, and reassured it that it was nothing on the level of fuck-baby-Jesus-with-a-stapler (which I could STILL say if I wanted to), she was mollified, but only for a moment. Still, something must have got said somewhere, because otherwise mom would never have known what Facebook is, let alone that I have one that I use for liberal heathen brainwashing purposes. She kept hammering on the part about my brother feels "uncomfortable" with stuff like that. I did say, as calmly as I could, that if this is the case, he doesn't have to look. I should have refused to discuss him with her at all.
And now, b):
I could offer you a lot of explanations about my long LJ hiatus--with the dissertation finished, the daily dose of writing is no longer a strict necessity to jump-start the process; the new job consumes a great deal of my time and energy and finger strength, as well as the 2-hour round-trip commute; the myriad frustrations of moving, unpacking, finding new grocery stores and restaurants and dry cleaners and suchlike are both too draining and too mundane to be worth chronicling.
And all that's true. But all of those together make up only about 30% of the reason. The rest is my family, my beloved, rude, selfish, irritating, emotional vampire family who are 180 degrees opposite me on the philosophical spectrum (which is fine) and who are determined to crush this "rebellion" out of me (which is not). I didn't play the game last night, because my energy for this kind of crap is already used up. It might well be the crowning irony of my life if I end up having to cut off my brother and parents now that they live 10 and 15 minutes away, respectively.
Moving back up here, close to my family and where I grew up, with good jobs for both me and Mike, has always been the ultimate goal. And now that it's happened, I seriously consider moving to Russia or Bolivia or Australia. I think I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I liked them better when they were far away, and as long as we had that distance between us, they could pretend I was someone who fit their idea of how I should be. Now I'm here, large as life and twice as ugly, as the saying goes, and no one can pretend anymore. Further ugliness ensues.
They love me, and I love them. There's nothing we wouldn't do for each other, and if I needed anything tomorrow, they'd be there without hesitation. Life and death situations? Crises, financial, professional and/or emotional? We're there for each other. It's the day-to-day bullshit that is going to drive me over the edge.
My mom lives in a fantasy land where my brother longs to be close to me and I push him away. This is the guy who I've seen less than 5 times in the months since we've moved here, who now lives 10 minutes away and talks to me less than he ever has, seldom returns my calls and NEVER returns my emails, avoids my invitations and requests for dinner and socializing, and who refused point-blank to come to my house for Thanksgiving, even when I offered to get the dog out of the house for the day. The whole fam damily piled on to accuse me of being "selfish" and "stubborn" and of "hijacking" the holiday for my own inconsiderate motives. I think I'll spend Christmas in Budapest.
He still can't talk to me except through our mom. And she won't be here forever.
I've been thinking and re-thinking my reasons for wanting or not wanting to have kids. I suspect that, a great deal of the time, people have kids at least partly to have a shot at righting the wrongs of their own pasts. Here in the cyberprivacy of my own little LJ kingdom, I can honestly say I'd rather be child-free the rest of my life than perpetuate this kind of dysfunctional fuckery. Is there no escape?
And for obvious reasons, I can't write this as a Facebook note. Thank the deity of secular reasoning I took my LJ link off my profile. I can say all this to you, and you'll listen and maybe respond. Or not. Is that what the ideal family is?
The latest is that my brother called my mom to complain to her about some of the stuff on my Facebook page. Go ahead and read that sentence again if you have to, slowly; take as much time as you need. My brother. Who is 33 years old. Called my mom. To complain about some of the "anti-Christian, liberal slant" stuff on. My. Facebook. Page.
And then she called me. Yes, I am officially in trouble, at 35 years of age, for being disrespectful, inconsiderate....basically for being everything my family doesn't want me to be. She ordered me to take it down. She pleaded, she verged on tears, she tried anger and worst-case scenarios, she tried to out-reason me, and finally played her trump card (and, I suspect, the real reason she called): my brother WANTS to have a closer relationship with me, but I make it hard by doing things like this, etc. etc.
You can probably imagine what I said in reply.
Actually I stayed pretty calm, because a) things have a way of getting garbled when they go through mom. No one in the family is permitted to talk directly to each other--all communication must be routed through her. This is supposedly done in order to avoid arguments (the undercurrent being that I am so damn difficult to get along with that everyone must approach me cautiously). In reality it ends up causing far more chaos, because things have a way of getting distorted. For all I know, my brother made a passing remark and she blew it waaaay out of proportion. She did seem to assume it was wildly, horribly mocking and blasphemous and offensive, whatever it was. When I explained a bit more about what it actually is, and reassured it that it was nothing on the level of fuck-baby-Jesus-with-a-stapler (which I could STILL say if I wanted to), she was mollified, but only for a moment. Still, something must have got said somewhere, because otherwise mom would never have known what Facebook is, let alone that I have one that I use for liberal heathen brainwashing purposes. She kept hammering on the part about my brother feels "uncomfortable" with stuff like that. I did say, as calmly as I could, that if this is the case, he doesn't have to look. I should have refused to discuss him with her at all.
And now, b):
I could offer you a lot of explanations about my long LJ hiatus--with the dissertation finished, the daily dose of writing is no longer a strict necessity to jump-start the process; the new job consumes a great deal of my time and energy and finger strength, as well as the 2-hour round-trip commute; the myriad frustrations of moving, unpacking, finding new grocery stores and restaurants and dry cleaners and suchlike are both too draining and too mundane to be worth chronicling.
And all that's true. But all of those together make up only about 30% of the reason. The rest is my family, my beloved, rude, selfish, irritating, emotional vampire family who are 180 degrees opposite me on the philosophical spectrum (which is fine) and who are determined to crush this "rebellion" out of me (which is not). I didn't play the game last night, because my energy for this kind of crap is already used up. It might well be the crowning irony of my life if I end up having to cut off my brother and parents now that they live 10 and 15 minutes away, respectively.
Moving back up here, close to my family and where I grew up, with good jobs for both me and Mike, has always been the ultimate goal. And now that it's happened, I seriously consider moving to Russia or Bolivia or Australia. I think I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I liked them better when they were far away, and as long as we had that distance between us, they could pretend I was someone who fit their idea of how I should be. Now I'm here, large as life and twice as ugly, as the saying goes, and no one can pretend anymore. Further ugliness ensues.
They love me, and I love them. There's nothing we wouldn't do for each other, and if I needed anything tomorrow, they'd be there without hesitation. Life and death situations? Crises, financial, professional and/or emotional? We're there for each other. It's the day-to-day bullshit that is going to drive me over the edge.
My mom lives in a fantasy land where my brother longs to be close to me and I push him away. This is the guy who I've seen less than 5 times in the months since we've moved here, who now lives 10 minutes away and talks to me less than he ever has, seldom returns my calls and NEVER returns my emails, avoids my invitations and requests for dinner and socializing, and who refused point-blank to come to my house for Thanksgiving, even when I offered to get the dog out of the house for the day. The whole fam damily piled on to accuse me of being "selfish" and "stubborn" and of "hijacking" the holiday for my own inconsiderate motives. I think I'll spend Christmas in Budapest.
He still can't talk to me except through our mom. And she won't be here forever.
I've been thinking and re-thinking my reasons for wanting or not wanting to have kids. I suspect that, a great deal of the time, people have kids at least partly to have a shot at righting the wrongs of their own pasts. Here in the cyberprivacy of my own little LJ kingdom, I can honestly say I'd rather be child-free the rest of my life than perpetuate this kind of dysfunctional fuckery. Is there no escape?
And for obvious reasons, I can't write this as a Facebook note. Thank the deity of secular reasoning I took my LJ link off my profile. I can say all this to you, and you'll listen and maybe respond. Or not. Is that what the ideal family is?