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Given a momentary lull...
Dec. 28th, 2009 10:11 amI thought I'd try to update things here. It's regrettable that I'm having to do so from my iPhone as that's a real pain, but we do what we must. I'll take this over my mom's 33.6 modem, thanks.
I did make to Oklahoma. I didn't throw up, which was good. I did get delayed a lot and got a voucher to show for it. I also got to be here for the first blizzard (!) in 50 years, in which people with 2wd cars, no snow chains, no snow tires, and no experience with driving in anything like real snow, decided to brave the elements and meet Mr. Ditch a number of times over. It was pretty entertaining as long as you weren't one of them, which I wasn't, thank heavens.
It's a week of Doing What Other People Want. Mom has a schedule and we stick to it. We go pick up Dad from the VA, go get lunch, go do something fun (for varying values of fun for me, but my parents and the boys generally really enjoy themselves). Cable in my room doesn't work and my laptop doesn't have a modem, so there's very little Internet access available for me. I get a couple of hours a day alone, if that, and my mom feels kind of annoyed if I could be spending time with family but I'm not, given that it's been so long since I was here. Luckily she's started listening to rock stations in the car, so there's at least music I know playing. Every little bit of something familiar helps.
My kids are having a great time, so I'm happy about that. Being home is always a mixed bag for me. I love my family, but we are so different, and I can't live comfortably in their world. And they don't really understand that even though they accept it, and it makes them sad. And I don't cope altogether gracefully with being out of my element and having no control, and that doesn't help. I hide a lot and I'm quiet, and I don't eat much or with the others, and I don't eat or drink what they do, by and large. There are still a lot of memories here of my marriage and divorce, though they don't plague me the way they once did. Now I just want to finish clearing them away so my mom's house isn't burdened with them anymore. I can't do that, though, because it isn't on the schedule. Argh.
Things I have realized:
1) In-car DVD players make me motion sick. Blargh.
2) My parents never realized that I was hiding in my room as a teenager because I couldn't handle the TV constantly being on. Now, that wasn't the only reason, but it was a big one.
3) My family has no notion of what to get me for Christmas. Seriously. Love them, but they don't.
4) My mom has turned 60, and with that has come tons of amazement about "young people today" and their values and what not. She became an old person when I wasn't looking. She hasn't told anyone to get off her lawn yet, but that day will come. :)
5) These discussions have obliquely turned around the fact that I have a boyfriend, that my mom's afraid I'm screwing up again, and that they'd really like to see me married and settled again. Yeesh. My dad apparently hopes I'll be married this next year, and although I tried to disabuse him of that notion, his mind is still such that it doesn't do much good. Awkward, really. Oh well.
6) I'm coming back in March without the boys to see my grandfather, who turns 99 in a few weeks. He can't handle the kids being around... It's just too much stress, and while his health is okay (pretty good for being 99, actually) it just wouldn't be a good idea to tax him that much. So in three months I'll come back for a few days and maybe get caught up a little then.
7) Looking at text on the iPhone screen for any length of time makes everything else seem blurry, so I think I'm done for now.
I did make to Oklahoma. I didn't throw up, which was good. I did get delayed a lot and got a voucher to show for it. I also got to be here for the first blizzard (!) in 50 years, in which people with 2wd cars, no snow chains, no snow tires, and no experience with driving in anything like real snow, decided to brave the elements and meet Mr. Ditch a number of times over. It was pretty entertaining as long as you weren't one of them, which I wasn't, thank heavens.
It's a week of Doing What Other People Want. Mom has a schedule and we stick to it. We go pick up Dad from the VA, go get lunch, go do something fun (for varying values of fun for me, but my parents and the boys generally really enjoy themselves). Cable in my room doesn't work and my laptop doesn't have a modem, so there's very little Internet access available for me. I get a couple of hours a day alone, if that, and my mom feels kind of annoyed if I could be spending time with family but I'm not, given that it's been so long since I was here. Luckily she's started listening to rock stations in the car, so there's at least music I know playing. Every little bit of something familiar helps.
My kids are having a great time, so I'm happy about that. Being home is always a mixed bag for me. I love my family, but we are so different, and I can't live comfortably in their world. And they don't really understand that even though they accept it, and it makes them sad. And I don't cope altogether gracefully with being out of my element and having no control, and that doesn't help. I hide a lot and I'm quiet, and I don't eat much or with the others, and I don't eat or drink what they do, by and large. There are still a lot of memories here of my marriage and divorce, though they don't plague me the way they once did. Now I just want to finish clearing them away so my mom's house isn't burdened with them anymore. I can't do that, though, because it isn't on the schedule. Argh.
Things I have realized:
1) In-car DVD players make me motion sick. Blargh.
2) My parents never realized that I was hiding in my room as a teenager because I couldn't handle the TV constantly being on. Now, that wasn't the only reason, but it was a big one.
3) My family has no notion of what to get me for Christmas. Seriously. Love them, but they don't.
4) My mom has turned 60, and with that has come tons of amazement about "young people today" and their values and what not. She became an old person when I wasn't looking. She hasn't told anyone to get off her lawn yet, but that day will come. :)
5) These discussions have obliquely turned around the fact that I have a boyfriend, that my mom's afraid I'm screwing up again, and that they'd really like to see me married and settled again. Yeesh. My dad apparently hopes I'll be married this next year, and although I tried to disabuse him of that notion, his mind is still such that it doesn't do much good. Awkward, really. Oh well.
6) I'm coming back in March without the boys to see my grandfather, who turns 99 in a few weeks. He can't handle the kids being around... It's just too much stress, and while his health is okay (pretty good for being 99, actually) it just wouldn't be a good idea to tax him that much. So in three months I'll come back for a few days and maybe get caught up a little then.
7) Looking at text on the iPhone screen for any length of time makes everything else seem blurry, so I think I'm done for now.
