![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I walked with my friend A. this morning. I warned her R. had a cold, but she was okay with that. She wore a mask, and I wore a mask so that we could hug. It was _really_ _nice_ to hug my friend.
She listened to me talk while we walked and asked insightful questions and told me about her relationship with her sister, which was complicated, and which sadly was cut short by her sister’s early death before age 60. She helped me understand better what I was doing and why I was doing it, which is, honestly, kind of a miracle and a very _kind_ miracle as well.
I didn’t blog last night about my conversation with my sister, which was really upsetting and frustrating. When I feel down or in pain, I often work on vacation planning, because it makes me feel happy. But for a variety of reasons, some obvious and a lot not obvious at all, vacation planning has been Fraught for a while now. I’ve been trying to identify the various reasons and fix them. So, I’m avoiding planes, and I’m avoiding anything that is hard to cancel. I’m also actively trying to figure out what _I_ enjoy doing, and orient more of our vacation time around the things I enjoy. I find it absolutely soul destroying to plan something for a group of people I love that is designed to be the things that they love, and then _only_ hear complaints about it. Meanwhile, I haven’t done anything _I_ love. So I’m trying to plan things that I love.
The conversation with my sister started out with, hey, I’m thinking about road trips and caves and Shenandoah keeps popping up. I know you go there. Are there good timeshares there you like (I’m thinking in terms of cash rental so that I would have a kitchen). Nope — they stay in hotels. That’s fine. I’m asking, might you be interested in joining us, maybe you’re sick of it. Which honestly reminds me of years ago convos with her about Shenandoah, when she absolutely never wanted to go and not for any clear reason, but then after the pandemic happened, she went there repeatedly. *shrug* She was on board with joining me, but said, well, if the kids graduate from school and get a job, then we might not be able to go. And I’m like what?
So that degenerated into a sad and bizarre discussion of Can You Take Time Off From A New Job And If So When. Which maybe would have made sense in 2009 or whatever. But in 2022? In summer 2023? Really? I tried to be slightly more helpful, by asking, well, okay, fine, maybe they can’t get off work (a job they don’t yet have, and which if we schedule a trip, they can tell the job before they start it that they’ll need that time off, but, whatever, my sister has never had that much chutzpah in her working life), but why would that stop you and/or B. from joining us?
That was a more interesting conversation for a bit, but also degenerated quickly. Skipping lightly over the Learn to Drive discussion we had weeks ago, she immediately was like, oh, they could uber back and forth to work. And I’m like, what? OK. Maybe at least have them _start_ the driver’s ed stuff? So I resent her the link for the homeschool online class to learn the manual to pass the test to get the permit in her state.
But I’m feeling confused and pissy, and I clearly articulated that I was not trying to stress her out, but I was trying to get better at collaborative problem solving and that I didn’t really have any models for doing this, and I was sorry it wasn’t going great so I guess that conversation ended okay, but I was not happy.
I called Priestess and she did a spread for me, and it came back with a lot of Wands and weirdness. We talked about it and she sent me a picture of the spread and I slept on it. I then talked to A. about it this morning. And then I got online and booked a long weekend at the Cape with the plan that I would go with my daughter and whoever else, but if T. stayed home by himself, it would be a step towards the independence he dreams of. I messaged the whole family, and then when everyone was at dinner tonight, I learned that T. had hoped to go to Florida with R. that weekend or maybe another, and R. had been putting off the Florida trip because he hates airports and flying and so was exploiting consecutive excuses to Not Go. (I’m not going on that trip, because I’m going to be in Florida later, and don’t feel any need to visit my FIL really ever. He’s not my dad, and I’m paying some of his bills which does seem like more than enough from me.)
I was _expecting_ my son to be excited at the prospect of the house to himself — living independently! For a few days! — while we were at the Cape, but instead … whatever that was.
We talked it through. We talked about T.’s goal of independence (which we’ve really been digging into as part of his 3 year re-eval for his IEP), and steps towards that, and whether or not he would be allowed to drive himself alone to New Bedford next month to see his first cousin once removed’s performance there. (NO! Come on. R. will go with him. He can drive, but not by himself.) We talked about how being home alone and doing the things he needed to do (short trips to work, martial arts, etc.) was a way to develop independent living skills. But it was soooooo exhausting. Then A. wanted TikTok and T. wanted genealogy. Fine. But then TikTok served up some legit criticism of ABA, and I had to explain that, and then T. complained about how he didn’t like what the school did to him when he was little and I completely ran out of all of the rope.
I said some unfortunate things and at volume. I told them they really should not talk to me right now. I pointed out that this had been a lot, and also I was in the middle of a 3 day migraine (I know what causes these, and I don’t feel like going to a doctor and taking any of the drugs they might prescribe when I can soldier on through as long as I’m conservative with what I commit to in terms of human interaction. Also, I’ve done multiple rounds on the drugs, and they were not particularly effective.). They scattered to their rooms. My headache ebbed to a manageable level and I cleaned up after dinner, started laundry, talked to A. briefly when she came out of her room and made it clear that I loved her and she was not in trouble and I was not mad at her and also I had absolutely nothing left to give. I knocked on T.’s door and asked him to retrieve his dry laundry and told him all those same things.
And then I went to my room to blog about it all.
In just under 24 hours, I’ve gone through a compact, intense period of … whatever. I got mad at someone — my sister, because she wanted to pre-reserve the right to cancel a not yet planned vacation in case of a conflict with a job that neither of her kids had even applied for yet, without making any effort to take steps that she had weeks earlier committed to taking to support their independence in those jobs (the drivers ed link) (I told her I would pay for it).
When I get mad at people for being ridiculous or annoying or crazy, I self-reflect. I asked Priestess to help me figure it out, and also to do a tarot spread. This got us a confusing mess of Wands (among other nonsense). Then I talked to another friend, and got more insight into what I was doing and why. Then I took the step that I felt the conversations (and the tarot spread) had pointed to: plan a vacation that is something _I_ want to do, with someone who definitely wants to do that with me (my daughter) and that is tolerant of other people coming along or not, as the case may be.
The resistance happened anyway! From a totally unexpected direction, that required a lot of work to …. Manage? Help? support? I dunno. But there was very real parenting that had to happen there, and there was some very belated honesty from R.
What a mess.
This is so not my fault. I wish this shit would just stop happening to me.
She listened to me talk while we walked and asked insightful questions and told me about her relationship with her sister, which was complicated, and which sadly was cut short by her sister’s early death before age 60. She helped me understand better what I was doing and why I was doing it, which is, honestly, kind of a miracle and a very _kind_ miracle as well.
I didn’t blog last night about my conversation with my sister, which was really upsetting and frustrating. When I feel down or in pain, I often work on vacation planning, because it makes me feel happy. But for a variety of reasons, some obvious and a lot not obvious at all, vacation planning has been Fraught for a while now. I’ve been trying to identify the various reasons and fix them. So, I’m avoiding planes, and I’m avoiding anything that is hard to cancel. I’m also actively trying to figure out what _I_ enjoy doing, and orient more of our vacation time around the things I enjoy. I find it absolutely soul destroying to plan something for a group of people I love that is designed to be the things that they love, and then _only_ hear complaints about it. Meanwhile, I haven’t done anything _I_ love. So I’m trying to plan things that I love.
The conversation with my sister started out with, hey, I’m thinking about road trips and caves and Shenandoah keeps popping up. I know you go there. Are there good timeshares there you like (I’m thinking in terms of cash rental so that I would have a kitchen). Nope — they stay in hotels. That’s fine. I’m asking, might you be interested in joining us, maybe you’re sick of it. Which honestly reminds me of years ago convos with her about Shenandoah, when she absolutely never wanted to go and not for any clear reason, but then after the pandemic happened, she went there repeatedly. *shrug* She was on board with joining me, but said, well, if the kids graduate from school and get a job, then we might not be able to go. And I’m like what?
So that degenerated into a sad and bizarre discussion of Can You Take Time Off From A New Job And If So When. Which maybe would have made sense in 2009 or whatever. But in 2022? In summer 2023? Really? I tried to be slightly more helpful, by asking, well, okay, fine, maybe they can’t get off work (a job they don’t yet have, and which if we schedule a trip, they can tell the job before they start it that they’ll need that time off, but, whatever, my sister has never had that much chutzpah in her working life), but why would that stop you and/or B. from joining us?
That was a more interesting conversation for a bit, but also degenerated quickly. Skipping lightly over the Learn to Drive discussion we had weeks ago, she immediately was like, oh, they could uber back and forth to work. And I’m like, what? OK. Maybe at least have them _start_ the driver’s ed stuff? So I resent her the link for the homeschool online class to learn the manual to pass the test to get the permit in her state.
But I’m feeling confused and pissy, and I clearly articulated that I was not trying to stress her out, but I was trying to get better at collaborative problem solving and that I didn’t really have any models for doing this, and I was sorry it wasn’t going great so I guess that conversation ended okay, but I was not happy.
I called Priestess and she did a spread for me, and it came back with a lot of Wands and weirdness. We talked about it and she sent me a picture of the spread and I slept on it. I then talked to A. about it this morning. And then I got online and booked a long weekend at the Cape with the plan that I would go with my daughter and whoever else, but if T. stayed home by himself, it would be a step towards the independence he dreams of. I messaged the whole family, and then when everyone was at dinner tonight, I learned that T. had hoped to go to Florida with R. that weekend or maybe another, and R. had been putting off the Florida trip because he hates airports and flying and so was exploiting consecutive excuses to Not Go. (I’m not going on that trip, because I’m going to be in Florida later, and don’t feel any need to visit my FIL really ever. He’s not my dad, and I’m paying some of his bills which does seem like more than enough from me.)
I was _expecting_ my son to be excited at the prospect of the house to himself — living independently! For a few days! — while we were at the Cape, but instead … whatever that was.
We talked it through. We talked about T.’s goal of independence (which we’ve really been digging into as part of his 3 year re-eval for his IEP), and steps towards that, and whether or not he would be allowed to drive himself alone to New Bedford next month to see his first cousin once removed’s performance there. (NO! Come on. R. will go with him. He can drive, but not by himself.) We talked about how being home alone and doing the things he needed to do (short trips to work, martial arts, etc.) was a way to develop independent living skills. But it was soooooo exhausting. Then A. wanted TikTok and T. wanted genealogy. Fine. But then TikTok served up some legit criticism of ABA, and I had to explain that, and then T. complained about how he didn’t like what the school did to him when he was little and I completely ran out of all of the rope.
I said some unfortunate things and at volume. I told them they really should not talk to me right now. I pointed out that this had been a lot, and also I was in the middle of a 3 day migraine (I know what causes these, and I don’t feel like going to a doctor and taking any of the drugs they might prescribe when I can soldier on through as long as I’m conservative with what I commit to in terms of human interaction. Also, I’ve done multiple rounds on the drugs, and they were not particularly effective.). They scattered to their rooms. My headache ebbed to a manageable level and I cleaned up after dinner, started laundry, talked to A. briefly when she came out of her room and made it clear that I loved her and she was not in trouble and I was not mad at her and also I had absolutely nothing left to give. I knocked on T.’s door and asked him to retrieve his dry laundry and told him all those same things.
And then I went to my room to blog about it all.
In just under 24 hours, I’ve gone through a compact, intense period of … whatever. I got mad at someone — my sister, because she wanted to pre-reserve the right to cancel a not yet planned vacation in case of a conflict with a job that neither of her kids had even applied for yet, without making any effort to take steps that she had weeks earlier committed to taking to support their independence in those jobs (the drivers ed link) (I told her I would pay for it).
When I get mad at people for being ridiculous or annoying or crazy, I self-reflect. I asked Priestess to help me figure it out, and also to do a tarot spread. This got us a confusing mess of Wands (among other nonsense). Then I talked to another friend, and got more insight into what I was doing and why. Then I took the step that I felt the conversations (and the tarot spread) had pointed to: plan a vacation that is something _I_ want to do, with someone who definitely wants to do that with me (my daughter) and that is tolerant of other people coming along or not, as the case may be.
The resistance happened anyway! From a totally unexpected direction, that required a lot of work to …. Manage? Help? support? I dunno. But there was very real parenting that had to happen there, and there was some very belated honesty from R.
What a mess.
This is so not my fault. I wish this shit would just stop happening to me.