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Sunday: walks, disrupted
Sep. 13th, 2020 11:00 pmI had a phone call with my friend M., and walked while on the phone with her.
R. took T. to track. Yay!
I did not get a walk with M., because she was away in the morning, and the afternoon was complicated.
I took T. to his friend’s house to go paddleboarding on Forge Pond in Littleton. I hung out with I. and chatted — that was really nice. She seems a little less anxious than she has seemed in the past, but possibly that is because we were hanging out in her driveway talking instead of at a restaurant somewhere which tends to make her anxiety worse.
Later, I did the 3 mile walk and talked with my sister, and Priestess. I was feeling pretty aggravated, because on family zoom, I was asked about how the house planning is going and one SIL was wondering if it would be next summer and I was like, ha ha, no. W.T.F. And then both SILs and husband ganged up on me and tried to convince me that my timeline (probably move in done — painted, furnished, pool working well — towards the end of 2022) was wrong.
Soooo, this whole thing was my idea, I am hiring everyone, I am planning the whole thing and straight up, I am World Class, Rockstar, Every Badge and Achievement Ever at estimating schedules. My older sister was ludicrously good at it, and I am better than she ever was, and I do it in more areas, with more complicated constraints and more human dependencies. This is not about, hypothetically, could _a_ house, with the amenities in question be built in roughly the area we are planning on building, on whatever timeline. We hired a design build firm. This is NOT a rush job. This is not, cookie cutter, prefab, plop it down on a pad and then swarm it with 150 workers to finish all the details. Come on. Among other things, it would destroy all the fun I have been looking forward to figuring out every last detail to make it delightful in every way, and it would drive the cost to the moon and back.
It took me a while to even work out a theory as to what happened. Both SILs are having empty nest issues: one has a very empty nest, with both kids permanently grown and out of the house and building family units of their own (no kids, but that is not necessary to be a family unit, nor is marriage), and the husband down at their dream house in another country which finally let him back in; the other is beginning to experience that, with her daughter back on the west coast finishing up last year of college. They both have extremely high-responsibility / high-prestige jobs that are pretty miserable and unrewarding right now (because every high-responsibility job right now is even higher responsibility because Lives On the Line, etc.). They are both prone to dealing with sad / down / tired / other negative feelings through distraction. The combo of empty nest creating missing pieces feelings thus longing for friends and family, and a desire for distraction and family zoom was ... bad for me. I do NOT participate in fantasy thinking about my actual projects (honestly, I do not really do shared fantasy thinking at all. Get someone else to dream your dream with you).
I am feeling exceptionally pissy about the whole thing, because normally, I am the _only_ person trying to map out the holiday schedule in August / September, and no one wants to commit to including me and my family in their plans. This year, everyone that I am usually trying to connect with suddenly wants to talk about it, and I want absolutely none of it. I do not trust a _single person_ in my entire extended family not to fucking cancel on me. And not because someone actually got the Rona, or was even meaningfully exposed to the Rona — they will cancel at the last possible and most inconvenient moment, waiting until after no-penalty deadlines have passed and large food items have been ordered, and they will do it because they saw something in the news or someone said something or WTF and they got scared again. Fool me twice, fine, but no way on round three. I did make reservations for my sister’s family to join me for T-weekend, and I am watching that cancellation deadline like a hawk. I will cancel _for_ them if things are looking at all dodgy. I am totally fine with staying home for the holidays this year, and hanging with my own fam.
Also, I canceled our family Orlando trip because we do not want to put MIL at risk, and she is _again_ on vacation, this time in SC.
R. took T. to track. Yay!
I did not get a walk with M., because she was away in the morning, and the afternoon was complicated.
I took T. to his friend’s house to go paddleboarding on Forge Pond in Littleton. I hung out with I. and chatted — that was really nice. She seems a little less anxious than she has seemed in the past, but possibly that is because we were hanging out in her driveway talking instead of at a restaurant somewhere which tends to make her anxiety worse.
Later, I did the 3 mile walk and talked with my sister, and Priestess. I was feeling pretty aggravated, because on family zoom, I was asked about how the house planning is going and one SIL was wondering if it would be next summer and I was like, ha ha, no. W.T.F. And then both SILs and husband ganged up on me and tried to convince me that my timeline (probably move in done — painted, furnished, pool working well — towards the end of 2022) was wrong.
Soooo, this whole thing was my idea, I am hiring everyone, I am planning the whole thing and straight up, I am World Class, Rockstar, Every Badge and Achievement Ever at estimating schedules. My older sister was ludicrously good at it, and I am better than she ever was, and I do it in more areas, with more complicated constraints and more human dependencies. This is not about, hypothetically, could _a_ house, with the amenities in question be built in roughly the area we are planning on building, on whatever timeline. We hired a design build firm. This is NOT a rush job. This is not, cookie cutter, prefab, plop it down on a pad and then swarm it with 150 workers to finish all the details. Come on. Among other things, it would destroy all the fun I have been looking forward to figuring out every last detail to make it delightful in every way, and it would drive the cost to the moon and back.
It took me a while to even work out a theory as to what happened. Both SILs are having empty nest issues: one has a very empty nest, with both kids permanently grown and out of the house and building family units of their own (no kids, but that is not necessary to be a family unit, nor is marriage), and the husband down at their dream house in another country which finally let him back in; the other is beginning to experience that, with her daughter back on the west coast finishing up last year of college. They both have extremely high-responsibility / high-prestige jobs that are pretty miserable and unrewarding right now (because every high-responsibility job right now is even higher responsibility because Lives On the Line, etc.). They are both prone to dealing with sad / down / tired / other negative feelings through distraction. The combo of empty nest creating missing pieces feelings thus longing for friends and family, and a desire for distraction and family zoom was ... bad for me. I do NOT participate in fantasy thinking about my actual projects (honestly, I do not really do shared fantasy thinking at all. Get someone else to dream your dream with you).
I am feeling exceptionally pissy about the whole thing, because normally, I am the _only_ person trying to map out the holiday schedule in August / September, and no one wants to commit to including me and my family in their plans. This year, everyone that I am usually trying to connect with suddenly wants to talk about it, and I want absolutely none of it. I do not trust a _single person_ in my entire extended family not to fucking cancel on me. And not because someone actually got the Rona, or was even meaningfully exposed to the Rona — they will cancel at the last possible and most inconvenient moment, waiting until after no-penalty deadlines have passed and large food items have been ordered, and they will do it because they saw something in the news or someone said something or WTF and they got scared again. Fool me twice, fine, but no way on round three. I did make reservations for my sister’s family to join me for T-weekend, and I am watching that cancellation deadline like a hawk. I will cancel _for_ them if things are looking at all dodgy. I am totally fine with staying home for the holidays this year, and hanging with my own fam.
Also, I canceled our family Orlando trip because we do not want to put MIL at risk, and she is _again_ on vacation, this time in SC.