Thanksgiving was good and bad. I made a gluten free meal with my cousin at here mom's house. The way her kids appreciated that someone had gone to the trouble to make sure they could eat everything there felt great. The way my brothers stood me up felt awful. Mike's been staying with another aunt and choose to go to her celebration, he was just in jail all week so he couldn't tell me that. Tom said he was going to have to work that day, then said he would be coming that morning, then told me he didn't need a ride when I offered him one, then didn't show up. Later he wanted me to bring him leftovers. By then I was already back in Iola. The next day he was calling me trash and all kinds of stuff on facebook. I know its a reflection on him, not me, but it still hurts.
Jason's baby niece passed away the day after thanksgiving. He's upset and blue, understandably. He also told me not to come to the funeral. Without going into nauseating detail, let me just say that I feel like he shuts me out of his life. He'll hang out with me, he'll let his son hang out with my kids and we all do things together. We can hang out alone at his house or go together to the casino or the bar. But anything that might involve me interacting with his relatives is completely out. People he claims he doesn't like and no one in his family likes seem to be more involved and in the know than I am.
I know that this is an emotional time for him, and that weather he's pulling back or excluding me or not, this event is not the one to raise a fuss about over. I know that grief makes people react in ways that aren't always the best reflection of themselves. So I'm doing my best to pray and be patient and remember that when my mother died I was literally crazy for months. The loss of an infant . . . is bad.
I might also be jealous of the whole family thing. I celebrated TG with my aunt, but she's not my mom. Jason has two parents, brothers, a sister, cousins, and grandparents. They all get together on a fairly regular basis, birthdays, weekly dinners, I wish I had that in my life.
I also know that attending the funeral for an infant I never met because I'm the girlfriend of her uncle is a little weird. So, I prayed for the whole family and went to work.
My neighbor also died. He was in the hospital for a while but was sent home three weeks ago. I think it was hospice care. He passed sometime in the last few days, I don't know when, but his funeral was today. Again, didn't go. Didn't know until after the fact.
I'll miss Bill, he was a good neighbor to have. Now he's gone, I'm sure his wife won't be next door for long, she has trouble physically getting around and depended on him for quite a bit of help. I'll miss them both.
Part of all this is that I was never trained in proper social skills. There are rules about what you say to people when someone died, but you aren't particularly close to them or the person who passed. There are rules about dealing with brothers who act like idiots during the holidays. But I was raised by crazy, alcoholic, drug addled people, and they didn't teach me those things and now I am this overly analytical, overly literal mess about most things.
Seriously, If you ask me how thanksgiving was, I'll tell you the truth, my brother didn't show up and then called me names in public. If I'm sick and you ask me "how's it going" I'll tell you I'm a little sick.
I know I'm creating my own angst here. And to be honest, I wonder if I'm not doing it on purpose. I should be happy. I have the job I always wanted. I make enough money to comfortably pay my bills and have enough left to treat my kids. I opporated on crisis mode for years, and put off my current happiness in favor of how much better things would be in the future.
But now I've achieved a lot of the things I was aiming for. I have a good job that pays well. I work in a collegial environment. I feel respected at work, and work with people I respect. Life isn't perfect. Isaiah is having issues with school, he doesn't do his work and lies to me about it, lies to his teachers ect.
But in general, life should be good. Yet I still feel . . . off. I know these are my issues. I just don't know how to fix it. I am trying to seperate my issues from actual reality, and trying very hard not to take them all out on other people.
And I really hope no one I know dies for a while. I don't like that at all.
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