we interrupt this blog to bring you passive aggressive wank
Warning: it's mine, and about family things. It's more of the same thing as the previous post (which I've deleted in favor of this one. I thought about merging them but I've spent too much time on it as it is.) I've been fussing over this thing all day and most of yesterday, eating up all my writing time. Common sense tells me to lock the damn thing but I really really really hope someone involved reads this because I'm tired of keeping it all to myself.
This goes better here than on the writer blog, I think. Nothing goes together better than LJ and good old fashioned wank.
Laura's stepfather, John, is a wonderful person, one of those rare genuinely nice people without an agenda or a mean bone in his body. Laura totally lucked out on the stepfather roulette. And I have never forgotten that when I went to her confirmation back in April and sat down next to him and her mother the very first words out of his mouth were "I am so sorry about your mother. How are you doing?"
And I realized that not one member of my own huge extended family had ever asked me that question. Not one card, not one phone call, not one email. Not one of the people who makes up my family had any interest in how I was faring after the death of my mother. And my whole perspective over what my place is in the universe kind of shifted. When a man whom I've met maybe a dozen times was more kind than any of my blood relatives, it was a complete shock. You never know how people really feel about you until it really matters. Then it all comes out.
You want to know what I really think? Here:
So what purpose does my going to this memorial thing serve? It would be closure for me? But it's not allowed to be about me. I'm not permitted to inject myself in this. How selfish I am to have anything be about me! Even my grief is dismissed as being all about me. The first words out of my family's mouth right after Mom died? I need counseling. Because I'm grieving, and they aren't. How dare I grieve? Don't I know it's not about me? No one else needs counseling; I'm the only weak one, it's me that "has" to talk to someone. Well I used to have someone to talk to, who actually listened to me. You know what happened? She died. But I'm not allowed to grieve about it, and I'm not allowed to talk about it. Because then I'm just asking for attention. No one wants to hear me talk about it. "Talk to someone else. Talk to someone who gets paid to listen to you. No one here gives a damn. We did our grieving already (n.b.: I was actually told that), without you. You're on your own. (and we didn't want you intruding on our grief by having grief of your own dirtying it all up)"
in short: You all shut me out of the whole process and are irritated by the fact that in normal circumstances people who grieve can comfort one another, but you have no comfort to offer me and you do not want mine. This makes any attempt on my part to have a stake in the process not only unwelcome, but offensive to you.
"Here's a quarter; call someone who cares. But don't expect us to call you. We'll take your phone number and pretend we'll call you someday, but we won't. Because we don't need to call you. And if you need to call us, well then, it's all about your needs, isn't it? See? We told you you think it's all about you! See, we're right! And we don't want to hear it!"
That is what I think.
The only way to untangle a Gordian Knot this big is with a bigger knife.
My knife is called "have fun without me." Because you will anyway. In fact the odds highly favor the concept that your ability to have fun is inversely proportional to my attendance. This is evidenced by the chain of progress on going to this thing, which started out as "hey, come to LA, we'll all drive up together and get two hotel rooms, you pay for one and we'll get the other" and became "oh, our car's too small, you want to drive up yourselves?" to "hey, we rented a car so we're now taking Chris's friend with us! But still no room for you! And we're going to spend time with X and Y and have a barbecue! But you're on your own, too bad, deal with it. We've made all these plans and YOU'RE NOT INCLUDED IN THEM."
Why I'm writing about this is that I've realized that the best way I can honor Mom this weekend is not by spending every dime I have to drive all over creation for three solid days to spend a few hours with a bunch of total strangers I happen to share DNA with and who don't much care about me anyway. And I just saw Dad two weeks ago; he's so unsentimental it won't matter to him if I'm there or not. In fact I think he'd prefer if I wasn't there. Because if I was upset, then how dare I draw attention to myself? I'd be ruining it for everyone else!!1!11eleven!
It's the next logical step, up from the fact that he came to MY CITY for a week to spend money and gamble and drink but had NO time to pick up a goddamn phone let alone have a stupid beer together. Even after he said he would meet me, and yet left me with no word for days and got pissed off when I tracked him down to his hotel and dared call him!
(the pathetic thing is, I had something wonderful I wanted to share, something fantastic, that I had borrowed on threat of death if anything happened to it, just to show him when I saw him when he came to my city. I'd been waiting for days, knowing he'd be thrilled to see it; it was the ultimate geeky thing for fans of a certain historical period. Needless to say, he never saw it. I think I tried to tell him about it later but he just shrugged it off. Because no one cares what I have to contribute, right? So I returned the wonderful thing to the person I borrowed it from, one of my managers at work, and cried at her desk for half an hour. She could not believe my father would treat me like that. I couldn't either, then.)
No I have not forgotten. How could I forget that he has never come to visit me for the sake of visiting me, and not as a byproduct of some other more important thing he had going--and I don't mean just now, but anywhere I've lived? And there's more, many more, over the years--but I have a bandwidth limit, so I'll refrain.
I'm tired of having to invite myself to any of my own family's interactions. I have to invite myself, because if I didn't invite myself I'd never be included in anything. So now the question becomes: why the hell would I want to keep trying to be where my presence is unwanted? Why keep rolling a stone uphill when it just rolls back down again?
The answer is, because I'm stupid and don't learn.
My whole life you've all told me how important family is. And I drank the kool-aid on that one. Because I never realized that somehow I wasn't included in that until much later, and when I did catch on, I was told to stop making it about me.
So let me sum this up: it's not about family, including me; it's really about everyone else except me. I'm not on the inside, and no one's letting me in, and I'm selfish for even thinking of wanting to get in, let alone trying it.
Got it. Okay. I get the message, finally! How can I not get it when you keep giving me all these examples? It only took 40 some years. Sorry for wrecking the bliss of your ignoring me by daring to draw attention to myself. You can go back to ignoring me now. Out of sight, out of mind.
Have fun without me. You always seem to.
This goes better here than on the writer blog, I think. Nothing goes together better than LJ and good old fashioned wank.
Laura's stepfather, John, is a wonderful person, one of those rare genuinely nice people without an agenda or a mean bone in his body. Laura totally lucked out on the stepfather roulette. And I have never forgotten that when I went to her confirmation back in April and sat down next to him and her mother the very first words out of his mouth were "I am so sorry about your mother. How are you doing?"
And I realized that not one member of my own huge extended family had ever asked me that question. Not one card, not one phone call, not one email. Not one of the people who makes up my family had any interest in how I was faring after the death of my mother. And my whole perspective over what my place is in the universe kind of shifted. When a man whom I've met maybe a dozen times was more kind than any of my blood relatives, it was a complete shock. You never know how people really feel about you until it really matters. Then it all comes out.
You want to know what I really think? Here:
So what purpose does my going to this memorial thing serve? It would be closure for me? But it's not allowed to be about me. I'm not permitted to inject myself in this. How selfish I am to have anything be about me! Even my grief is dismissed as being all about me. The first words out of my family's mouth right after Mom died? I need counseling. Because I'm grieving, and they aren't. How dare I grieve? Don't I know it's not about me? No one else needs counseling; I'm the only weak one, it's me that "has" to talk to someone. Well I used to have someone to talk to, who actually listened to me. You know what happened? She died. But I'm not allowed to grieve about it, and I'm not allowed to talk about it. Because then I'm just asking for attention. No one wants to hear me talk about it. "Talk to someone else. Talk to someone who gets paid to listen to you. No one here gives a damn. We did our grieving already (n.b.: I was actually told that), without you. You're on your own. (and we didn't want you intruding on our grief by having grief of your own dirtying it all up)"
in short: You all shut me out of the whole process and are irritated by the fact that in normal circumstances people who grieve can comfort one another, but you have no comfort to offer me and you do not want mine. This makes any attempt on my part to have a stake in the process not only unwelcome, but offensive to you.
"Here's a quarter; call someone who cares. But don't expect us to call you. We'll take your phone number and pretend we'll call you someday, but we won't. Because we don't need to call you. And if you need to call us, well then, it's all about your needs, isn't it? See? We told you you think it's all about you! See, we're right! And we don't want to hear it!"
That is what I think.
The only way to untangle a Gordian Knot this big is with a bigger knife.
My knife is called "have fun without me." Because you will anyway. In fact the odds highly favor the concept that your ability to have fun is inversely proportional to my attendance. This is evidenced by the chain of progress on going to this thing, which started out as "hey, come to LA, we'll all drive up together and get two hotel rooms, you pay for one and we'll get the other" and became "oh, our car's too small, you want to drive up yourselves?" to "hey, we rented a car so we're now taking Chris's friend with us! But still no room for you! And we're going to spend time with X and Y and have a barbecue! But you're on your own, too bad, deal with it. We've made all these plans and YOU'RE NOT INCLUDED IN THEM."
Why I'm writing about this is that I've realized that the best way I can honor Mom this weekend is not by spending every dime I have to drive all over creation for three solid days to spend a few hours with a bunch of total strangers I happen to share DNA with and who don't much care about me anyway. And I just saw Dad two weeks ago; he's so unsentimental it won't matter to him if I'm there or not. In fact I think he'd prefer if I wasn't there. Because if I was upset, then how dare I draw attention to myself? I'd be ruining it for everyone else!!1!11eleven!
It's the next logical step, up from the fact that he came to MY CITY for a week to spend money and gamble and drink but had NO time to pick up a goddamn phone let alone have a stupid beer together. Even after he said he would meet me, and yet left me with no word for days and got pissed off when I tracked him down to his hotel and dared call him!
(the pathetic thing is, I had something wonderful I wanted to share, something fantastic, that I had borrowed on threat of death if anything happened to it, just to show him when I saw him when he came to my city. I'd been waiting for days, knowing he'd be thrilled to see it; it was the ultimate geeky thing for fans of a certain historical period. Needless to say, he never saw it. I think I tried to tell him about it later but he just shrugged it off. Because no one cares what I have to contribute, right? So I returned the wonderful thing to the person I borrowed it from, one of my managers at work, and cried at her desk for half an hour. She could not believe my father would treat me like that. I couldn't either, then.)
No I have not forgotten. How could I forget that he has never come to visit me for the sake of visiting me, and not as a byproduct of some other more important thing he had going--and I don't mean just now, but anywhere I've lived? And there's more, many more, over the years--but I have a bandwidth limit, so I'll refrain.
I'm tired of having to invite myself to any of my own family's interactions. I have to invite myself, because if I didn't invite myself I'd never be included in anything. So now the question becomes: why the hell would I want to keep trying to be where my presence is unwanted? Why keep rolling a stone uphill when it just rolls back down again?
The answer is, because I'm stupid and don't learn.
My whole life you've all told me how important family is. And I drank the kool-aid on that one. Because I never realized that somehow I wasn't included in that until much later, and when I did catch on, I was told to stop making it about me.
So let me sum this up: it's not about family, including me; it's really about everyone else except me. I'm not on the inside, and no one's letting me in, and I'm selfish for even thinking of wanting to get in, let alone trying it.
Got it. Okay. I get the message, finally! How can I not get it when you keep giving me all these examples? It only took 40 some years. Sorry for wrecking the bliss of your ignoring me by daring to draw attention to myself. You can go back to ignoring me now. Out of sight, out of mind.
Have fun without me. You always seem to.