Posted on by LA · 76 Comments

What if you Don’t

Have you ever heard anyone say that you should see your parents often as they age, because one day you’ll regret that you didn’t?

Let’s think about that for a moment:

I understand regret that we should have done something, seen someone more. I think as humans we often wish we had done things differently. I think it’s sort of natural to become wistful and begin with the “Oh if only” dance…

But should everyone see their parents more as they get older?

Or are some relationships meant to be kept at a distance? Are some relationships meant to be a once a month or season kind of thing?

First, let’s look at how you remember someone:

If a parent has gotten cranky, how much time do you want to spend with them? Do you want to make weekly visits to someone who complains about literally everything? Is this the lasting memory that you want?

How about the parent who has lost some of their mental capabilities. Again, how often can you sit with a person who does not remember who you are before it takes a toll on you? Do you want your lasting memories to be of someone who was confused and befuddled more often than not?

Next, let’s think about the level of relationship that you had with the parent. While some people have wonderful relationships with their parents, others don’t. There’s a lot of disfunction on families. Like it or not, some people might not really miss a parent when they are gone because there was so much bad between them, there’s not really anything good to miss.

How often you do, or don’t, see parents as they age is a very personal decision. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all answer to this question. What brings closure or solace to one person might not be the same way for another. We are all individuals and handle things differently, so I don’t know if we should ever tell someone what to do in this situation. I think we should stop laying guilt trips on people about things they might not feel guilty about. If someone is dealing with a situation, is it right to add more junk to the ever growing pile of doubts and decisions and what should I do’s?

What is good for one person might not be good for another. Give people the benefit of the doubt that they may know how to handle a situation in the best way possible for them.

Posted on by LA · 93 Comments

Empathy: Or Lack thereof…

One of our acquaintances just lost her Father to a long illness. Prior to his death she had become quite emotional: taking a leave of absence from her job, spending time away from her husband and kids to help out her parents, and when she was was with them, increasingly treating her husband and children poorly. She took out all of her frustration on them- unleashing a wrath of terror no matter what they did. She routinely berated them.

When I saw her Husband, he was surprised to learn that my Father was quite ill. Why was he surprised? Because I was still acting as a mainly rational person.

Because I wasn’t ranting or complaining or screaming, he assumed I lack empathy and I was not upset about how ill my Father is. He actually said:

“So I guess you’re not upset.”

For the record, just because someone is not an emotional wreck does not mean they are not upset. It does not mean they are not sad. It just means that they remain pragmatic through the course of events because being so emotionally invested where you can’t move one foot in front of the other really doesn’t do one any good.

My Father is ill. I do what I can to help out my Mother and Father. I do not berate my sister because she lives across the country. I don’t yell at my Husband that we don’t live closer. I don’t yell at my daughter for very tiny infractions. I don’t sit and cry every day and be nasty to people. I just ask my Mother how I can help and I help.

I like a good cry. I also love a good rant where I can yell at people and call them incompetent. However, when dealing with this illness, that is not the best play in the playbook unless I am dealing with the long term care insurance company. Sometimes you just have to get through the day to day. Pets have to be fed, bills need to be paid, regular life has to go on.

Just because someone is not constantly wringing their hands, wearing a hair shirt and moaning woe is me all the time doesn’t mean that they don’t feel…they just choose not to enunciate their feelings.

Like now. Someone asked me how I can continue to blog while the situation in the Ukraine is going on. They thought I didn’t care, that I lacked empathy… In truth I care very much. I feel very badly for people who are forced to leave their homeland, forced to engage in a war they didn’t want. Just because I am not writing about it or sitting and talking about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to me. Just like COVID when people didn’t understand how I could just go on with my day and not give a body count tally…how COVID wasn’t the only thing on my mind.

People said I was cold and didn’t care about the human condition…

News flash: Just because you talk about something more doesn’t mean you feel more…It just means you talk about it more.

There is no prize for talking, thinking and obsessing about COVID and Ukraine and every other problem with the world every day, but I guess everyone has their hill. We all know what mine are but I will try to spread out my No Censorship, No Book Banning, No Addictive substances to solve problems spiels to every other week…

And if people want to think I’m cold, or emotionless, or lack empathy…so be it. I can’t tell others what to do or how to feel. But I can control what I do, which is to continue to be pragmatic about the situations in front of me, and treat everyone with as much respect as they deserve.

And just get out of bed each morning, put one foot in front of the other and just keep going.

Posted on by LA · 78 Comments

Going Down the Rabbit Hole

My friend M routinely stalks her ex husband. They do not share children together, so really, is there any reason to wonder what he is doing now, almost 30 years past their short lived post college marriage?

I’ve been apart from me ex husband 20+ years. Never once did I look him up online….you know, until I did…

A few months ago I wrote to you about getting rid of some big, glossy coffee table art books. I explained to you that thought they should have brought me joy, yet all they brought me was sadness, anger and regret.

I was thrilled to finally rid myself of the burden of these books.

Then I decided to Google my ex.

I found out he died three years ago.

Talk about dredging up sadness, anger and regret…

It’s odd to think about the death of someone who once meant a great deal to you. At one point in my life I thought I loved this person. I thought that I could care for this person and make their problems go away. I thought that this was the person I deserved to be with because of all sorts of issues with myself.

When you think about why you did something that turned out to be very bad for you, you end up feeling a little bit bad about yourself. You ask yourself how you could have been so stupid, blind….you ask yourself how you could have been so wrong…

Anger

Sadness

Regret

This is why the internet stinks. At your fingertips, in mere seconds, you can really find out anything and make yourself feel bad…search engines are a tool and a weapon. And it has to be treated as such. The internet can and does hurt you. It hurts your friends. It hurts your family. Handled incorrectly it hurts everyone.

Am I glad that I know that he’s dead?

Am I glad that he’s dead?

I don’t know. Three months later and I’m still processing my feelings. I’m journaling and thinking and making notes. Maybe this will too become a memoir…a rite of passage…a closing out of the books. I thought that this divorce, these feelings of sadness, anger and regret were long past me. I thought I was over all of this…but I can only wonder if these feelings ever actually go away. I wonder if they are always inside of us and somehow become part of our DNA, if every decision we make comes with the disclaimer that we have once been hurt very badly and we will forever remember that as we take tiny steps forward…

Do we compartmentalize our sadness, anger and regret so that we can live and find other emotions to balance those out? Or do we always fall back on our negatives?

Do we ever really forget? Or do we just learn to move on?

Do we ever get past the emotional damage in our lives, or do we just learn to live with it, like a scar that will not go away not matter what we put on it. It might fade, but there will always be traces.

I guess we can’t erase our past.

We just have to learn from it.

Posted on by LA · 53 Comments

A Tale of Two Aunts

Last week I lost my Aunt M, wife of my Father’s brother.  My Husband also lost an Aunt- the wife of his Mother’s brother.

When my parents found out about the death, they talked to my two cousins, sent a fruit basket to the house, and figured out if it were feasible to get from New Jersey to Louisiana.  When my MIL found out about the death, she asked the children of the deceased to pay for her plane ticket from Florida to New Jersey.

Let me backtrack: I have never met my Husband’s Aunt, nor the cousins, nor his Uncle when he was alive.  Obviously, it wasn’t a distance thing because they only live an hour away from us.  I never met them because my Mother in Law hadn’t spoken to her brother in about twenty years.  They reconciled about eight years ago, sort of, and then he passed about two years ago.  But to be clear, the relationship was contentious.  And now, well, now there’s no relationship again.

See, oddly, the family of the deceased did not take kindly to my MIL asking for a plane ticket. After my MIL’s third email about the trip up from the funeral, the daughter of the deceased called up screaming.  And my MIL hung up on her.

When Husband relayed this story to me, I just looked at him and said- “everyone remembers that your cousins Mom just died, right? That even though it was expected, it’s still hard and she’s raw? And that the “job” of those around her is to make her feel a little better about her loss? Not to aggravate her?” My husband just shrugged his shoulders.

If I wrote this story in a book, people would say I wasn’t being realistic, that this would never happen in real life. But as we all know, truth is stranger than fiction.  And people act in mysterious ways. I’m sure when my MIL relays this story to her friends she will undoubtedly make herself the victim (let’s face it, we all spin stories so that we show that we are wronged)

So the moral of the story is: think about what you’re saying and what you’re doing.  Think about how your actions affect those around you.  Consider for a brief moment what they are going through. And try to act in a way that is true to yourself, but considerate of those around you. And don’t hang up on a person who is grieving because they’re not doing what you want them to do.

 

Posted on by LA · 73 Comments

Do You Want to Know?

I recently read “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin.  This is not a review of the book, but rather a look at it’s main hypothesis.  I don’t consider anything I am about to write in the spoiler category, be forewarned.

The basic premise of this book revolves around knowing the exact date that you will die.  So my question is:  if you knew when you were going to die, would you live your life differently?

I have given this a lot of thought since reading the book.  How would I live my life?

I have a tremendous fear of heights, but mainly it revolves around falling.  If I am in an observatory, I am fine looking down as long as the environment is enclosed.  If it’s open, well, I’m twenty feet away from the edge.  Some of you remember my summer lighthouse adventure, when I was felled by the 15 steps I had to climb down, and I actually considered moving into the top of the lighthouse.  But really, I’m afraid of falling because I’m afraid of dying.  If I knew that I was not going to die the day of the lighthouse visit, would I descend the stairs more calmly because I knew this was not to be my day?

Then you have the other side.  One of the reasons I exercise is to keep healthy.  I think exercise is good for the heart, the muscles and the brain.  I think it helps you live longer.  But what if i found out my demise would be early?  Would I spend my time doing something I enjoy more, like laying on the couch reading?  Would I spend my time being less healthy because trying to be healthy doesn’t really matter because it’s not going to actually effect my life?

Though I usually overthink everything, including trips to the dry cleaner, I am amazed that I have never thought about this idea.  I guess the rational part of my brain knows that this kind of knowledge is not logical.  This is not something even computers can predict with any great accuracy, and I don’t believe a Buzzfeed quiz would be helpful either.  So rationally, I’m out.

But….

I like to think I am open minded.  I like to think that everything is possible until proven otherwise.  But is it possible to predict the day of demise?  And does it matter?

What do you all think?  Is it possible to know?  Do you want to know?  Would you live your life differently?

 

Posted on by LA · 34 Comments

Ensemble

It’s odd how some things come together.  One blogger friend writes about a word every day, and how it impacts his life.  Another blogger friend wrote about characters in TV shows.  And yet another wrote about the theme music on Good Times.  My friends father died last week.  This past weekend was the birthday of a dear friend of mine who passed away 7 years ago.  A fourth blogger has been posting about the end of his life, as cancer has taken over his body.  Today’s blog is inspired by all these things- it’s an ensemble.

When my daughter was in Pre-k, I met 4 parents.  Our children were all in the same class.  This was our first experience with the New York City public school system- these were our first (and for most) only children.  We had a lot to learn.  Parenting is so hard- we were afraid that we were screwing up at every turn. We needed support, so our little band of five was formed.  Our own personal ensemble cast- there wasn’t really a star (OK it was me….) but a group of great supporting actors.  We began meeting for coffee every morning after drop off.

These friends literally got me through early elementary school.  If I had an issue, a problem, an idea about child rearing- I threw it out to the group.  This was my safe space- where I could ask questions, give advice, laugh and cry.  These were my people.  We were what the best ensembles were- a collaboration of people, who alone were okay, but together could change the world.  Or run a school event.  Same thing.

But we were geeks- specifically about pop culture.  We read, we watched movies, we watched TV.  We all loved sit coms.  We would quote from sit coms as a part of our daily lives.  We would have debates over shows, and characters, and favorite episodes.  We could relate almost any situation on our lives directly to a TV show- this is like the Chinese restaurant in Seinfeld, this is like the Smelly Cat episode on Friends.

Then, when our kids were in third grade- G wasn’t feeling so well.  He went to doctor after doctor- but no one could see anything wrong.  Until they did.  He got the prognosis on the morning of the spring parent teacher conferences.  As we sat in the pizza place with the kids, eating our now traditional half day of school lunch- we could not look at one another.  While the kids still retained their innocence- the adults did not.  Nothing would ever be the same again.  Six weeks later he was gone.

His memorial service- hundreds of people- including his Grandmother- stood around eating mini hot dogs, drinking Dirty Martini’s (his drink)- wondering how this could happen to a 45 year old man, wo had three little kids.  We held each other, cried and laughed, and cried some more.  When I spoke to the crowd, I held back the tears- G would not want be to cry during the eulogy.  He would want me to remember him the way he lived his life- and I did my best.  I told stories about our little band of 5- how we would spend hours talking about nothing- which was really everything.  And I ended my speech with a quote from Frasier, our favorite show.  On the series finale, Niles says to his brother, “I’ll miss the coffees.”  And that was the bet way to sum up an amazing friendship and amazing person.

Last weekend would have been his 53rd birthday- the same age I turned this year.  And I still miss his laugh, his wit, his biting satire, his humanity, and his take on pop culture.  His presence in my life changed me- for the better.  I’m a better person for having known him.

And remember way back in the first paragraph?  All those things?  Our lives, our stories, are made of little bits and pieces of everything around us.  Anything can trigger a memory, or an idea.  And all those things made me think of G, on his birthday.  And made me cry a little, and made me laugh a little.

And thanks to the following, who unknowingly inspired me:

https://www.thisismytruthnow.com/

http://theycallmetater.wordpress.com/

http://www.thatsoulshit.wordpress.com/

http://www.spearfruit.com/-  Courage and honor.