tw grief
via https://ift.tt/3wzbKyo
it’s a gloomy wednesday– actually i just went and looked, and i think it’s
actually sunny out today but since i cannot see the sky from anywhere
within my workplace, i’m just assigning gloom to the day so i feel less
shitty about that–
and this morning i was struck with this sudden like all-over-my-body
feeling that if I don’t make some fucking art I’m going to fucking die
I’ve got two hours of work left before I can act on that so maybe I will,
this evening.
Unrelatedly, but in another contribution to the current all-consuming
malaise that’s either anxiety or I chronically have to poop, my older
sister emailed the family cheerfully and was like “unfortunately, on no
notice, i am irrevocably fucking up all family holiday plans, now and for
the future!” only she said it like, cheerfully and without any apparent
real regret.
The part that absolutely fucked me up is how she was like “but we can do
Christmas together next year!” which like
that is not how this works, oh my god, this is not how any of this works,
i have a very strict every-other-year thing with Dude’s family, and there
is no amount of notice in the world that is going to make it work out for
me to just switch years, this is– Dude’s mom flies to California on
alternate years, and this is a California year, and next year we’re with
her and the other grandparents of that nephew fly in from Texas, this is
how it has worked for at least twelve years now, there are so many people
reliant on this that I simply can’t even begin to ask to change.
This is entirely because Older Sister’s mother-in-law cancelled her turn at
Christmas one year for a sick dog, which like, that’s a bummer, but you
can’t just swap in next year, you are not the only person, but she’s been
giving Sister hell about it ever since, and– anyway I discussed this in
exhaustive detail with that brother-in-law last month while he was helping
build the cabin, and anyway I said flat out in those exact words “i cannot
change which holidays I spend where, it’s not something I have any degree
of flexibility on whatsoever”
and Older Sister was cheerfully like “and maybe we can hang out for New
Year’s!” and
i have an elderly cat, who needs twice-daily medication. Dude’s mom is the
only person we can have cat-sit. If she is in California (which she is
this year, that’s why it’s a Home Christmas instead of an Away Christmas)
then she cannot do that, so we have to board the cat. The boarding place
can’t reliably get her to eat her medicine. So we can’t really leave her
very long; a week is the longest I’d be comfortable with.
I cannot spend Christmas at mom’s and then New Year’s at Sister’s.
It is one OR the other.
If we are doing new traditions and it’s New Year’s now, well I would really
have liked to be consulted about that, I have a lot of considerations I’m
going to have to factor in, and also I had already kind of made this year’s
plans, it is mid-November already. (Sister had opened the email with “ah
but we’re coming up for Thanksgiving!” which like. [that’s the fine grains
of the thing, whichever family isn’t getting christmas gets thanksgiving.]
Dude’s mother has already purchased food and set a menu because
Thanksgiving is effectively given travel constraints next fucking week.)
I texted Mom about this, trying not to be dramatic, and Mom was like “did
older sister not contact you first?!?! she said she was going to!!!”
No, Mom, she did not.
Anyway I spent all last Christmas periodically going and hiding in my
mother-not-law’s bathroom to cry, because Dad had died suddenly four days
beforehand and my mother had told me not to come home, so I did not get to
see him before they cremated him and I did not get to see the family until
later in that week so I spent the week of Christmas crying alone at home,
and I spent a lot of the times I was hiding in the bathroom on Christmas
thinking about how at least next year we’d get to do that difficult first
Christmas together, and so anyway. Maybe my response to this is
disproportionate but I argue it’s somewhat warranted, maybe?
I sent an email saying the quiet part loud and said I’d have to see what I
could shuffle to attempt to accommodate this, and that at least since I
don’t have kids it’s only me that’s getting let down, because YOU KNOW that
is why everyone is going to think it’s fine to jerk me around, you just
KNOW that’s what it’s about.
Anyway I cried in the work bathroom about it just now, what are you gonna
do. This year’s theme is apparently crying in bathrooms.
(I was trying to send a calm, professional message about it and then get on
with my life but Mom responded and it destroyed whatever composure I had
about ti so guess what we’re just gonna Feel Bad today, and Older Sister
likely won’t look at her phone until after I’ve gone to bed because that’s
how her schedule has been lately and I feel for her, I do, but also, I
could punch her.)
I don’t know how people with real problems survive them, I tell you what.
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bomberqueen17
https://tmblr.co/mEi4sKUjTkzs4ila4vEdnuA’s series on casseroles
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bomberqueen17/search/casseroles and my
thinking is that, according to the season, I will try and manage one of my
own about soup.
