Category Archives: family

New family

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I had an e-mail exchange today with my cousin who lives in Southern California, and I found out that he and his wife are expecting their second child this February. He said he had been meaning to message me for a while, but he just kept forgetting. Their first child, who was born on the day that Chris proposed, was a boy, and now they are having a girl. He said that his wife may or may not be able to attend our wedding and that it depended on how demanding the new little one will be.

They’re local to our wedding, though, which is the most frustrating part. They are the ones that are actually within a reasonable driving distance (about an hour). If anything, they should all be guaranteed to come our wedding if even for just a couple of hours. My cousin says he and his son are definitely coming; it’s just up in the air whether his wife will be. I saw firsthand how frustrating babies and kids can be at the wedding in October, but how can you consider missing a wedding of a family member when it’s this close to where you live? You really cannot count on anyone coming to your wedding ever.

Thanksgiving 2015

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I spent Thanksgiving this year traveling with Chris east on a Swiss rail train from Geneva to Zurich in the morning, then wandering through the old town of Zurich and its Christmas markets through the afternoon and evening. As we walked through this beautiful city, I thought about all the Thanksgivings in my past.

The last time I was home for Thanksgiving was November 2003, my senior year of high school. That seems like a hundred years ago even though it was just 12 years ago. Those were the days when my cousins, Ed, uncle, and I would have a Thanksgiving meal together, mostly prepared by my oldest cousin and me. Some sides would be brought over by my uncle, some crappy leftover food and chips from my second oldest cousin and his wife, who were always in a rush to leave our dinner to go to the wife’s family’s dinner in Vallejo, and a turkey that was painstakingly made by my oldest cousin. For some reason, we never called turkey gravy “gravy,” and instead my cousin insisted on calling it “au jus.” I don’t really get that even until today, but maybe that was his attempt at sounding fancy.

Family Thanksgivings for me are sadly a thing of the past. After I graduated from college and started earning an income where flying cross country to go home during a “peak” season wouldn’t break the bank, I realized I had little desire to go home during that period anyway. We were a broken family. The only reason I ever thought even for a second of going home was because I always felt bad about not seeing Ed that day, and his not having a “family” to have Thanksgiving with. After a while, the cousins stopped getting together, which meant my uncle stopped coming, which finally meant Ed had no one that day. Guilt is pretty much built into our DNA. Before he passed away, I thought, maybe I could go home for Thanksgiving in 2014, or he could come here, and we could have a meal together once again. Well, that never happened. I was too late.

“Experts” always say in those articles about grieving that everyone grieves on their own timeline, that it can take months to years to decades to let go of the regrets you have about things you wish you had done or not done or said or not said to those who have passed. That is all true. It’s hard to think of a major holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas and not think about my brother, which then leads me to wonder what else I could have done to have helped him. It’s futile since nothing will bring him back, but I always think about it anyway. He loved turkey, especially the dark meat, and we both loved the canned cranberry sauce we grew up with. It would be really great to have a Thanksgiving meal with him once again. Now it can only happen in dreams.

Mom’s take on terrorism

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I talked to my mom on the phone today, and she asked me if I was aware of the attacks that happened in Paris last week. Of course I know, I said. Everyone knows.

“You’re really lucky that it didn’t happen while you were there,” she said in an admonishing tone. “I’m telling you right now. It’s dangerous to be traveling.”

I reassured her that it didn’t matter where in the world I was because terrorism could happen anywhere, at any time and any place. And lo and behold, New York City has just received ISIS death threats! I had to add in that last part because, well, how can I not be where I live and work?!

“Yes, I know about New York,” she said. “That’s why I told you not to go anywhere at night! It’s dangerous! Just stay home!”

Yes, because terrorists would never think to be out and about, bombing and shooting random people in the morning or during business hours Monday through Friday. They have to wait until the evening when it is dark to start shooting and killing people.

I stopped responding. I need to get better at not responding and just nodding my head.

Dioramas

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Last night, I dreamt that Ed was still here. Well, more correctly, he was at home in San Francisco, and I was there visiting. I walked into the living room to see him piecing something together, and after looking more closely, I realized that he was creating mini dioramas of my life after he had passed away. It actually starts the month before he passed away, when Chris and I visited St. Louis, Missouri. There are little photos of us from St. Louis and the big arch. Then, it progresses to July 2013, the month he died, and there are photos of our family and me together. I see little 3D pieces he has built of things I’d done after that, such as Christmas trees in Germany to Niagara Falls in Canada, and the entire project was just so complex, complete, and intricate. He has a diorama for each month of my life since he passed.

Ed was really creative when he was young. I remember his drawing and sketching skills were amazing, and he used to be able to make very accurate models of things like houses and even toilets (it was for a school project). He just wasn’t encouraged enough. I was too young to think much of it then, but when he got older, I told him that he was always a good artist. As an adult, he’d lost interest in those activities. Of course, my parents don’t think being a good artist means anything or has any value in life, so I’m sure at some point that sentiment was communicated to him.

I wish his creativity didn’t die, that someone could have been there to cheer him on. But I know I will remember for him.

Almost a year later

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It’s almost been a year since my dad’s heart surgery. It’s kind of crazy to think that this time last year, I was on a plane going home, wondering if my dad would make it through his double bypass surgery successfully. Oh, and we can’t forget about my mother’s massive complaining and guilt tripping when I left and said I was going to Europe for Thanksgiving just days after my dad got discharged from the hospital, and then spending Christmas in Australia once again.

Since my dad has recovered from his surgery, he is now more anal about the food that he eats, and he’s following all kinds of healthy food trends, like organic turmeric powder, chia seeds, and hemp seeds. On average, he’s eating about one half to one cup of seeds per day (he says he’s read articles that eating that amount of seeds per day will prolong your life), and a couple teaspoons of turmeric powder are being sprinkled into his morning oatmeal. After mixing multiple types of seeds, wheat germ, flax, cinnamon (to regulate his glycemic levels), and turmeric into his big bowl of breakfast oatmeal, the entire bowl looks like a bowl of vomit. I told my parents this the last time I was home in September. My mom chuckled and agreed, and my dad said nothing and had a look of defiance on his face.

For me, turmeric is meant to be in curry and banh xeo, not in oatmeal. But I guess this is what heart surgery can do to a person.

“Unnecessary”

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I let my dad know yesterday that we’re going to Australia for Christmas this year. He didn’t seem mind; in fact, he sounded like he was expecting it. I knew he’d tell my mom, who would get mad about it, so I was waiting for the point in our conversation tonight when she’d bring it up and demonstrate her frustration.

“You know, you can do what you want to do (that’s code for: you shouldn’t do what you want to do because it’s always a bad decision), but why are you spending all that money to go to Australia again this year? You’ve already seen Chris’s parents four times this year (that’s not even true; I saw them in the spring when they visited New York, and in October at Andy and Navine’s wedding in France). Why do you need to see them a fifth time this year? It’s unnecessary. I can see if you hadn’t seen them even once this year, but already four times! This is just not necessary. And then you are going to see them again in March!”

This is what I do. I try to respond calmly and rationally. It never works because she never actually hears anything I am saying. I told her that I’d only seen them twice this year, and the second time was for a wedding, which is a big deal even if it isn’t to her (because when I told her earlier this year we were going to the France wedding, she again said it was unnecessary and it was just spending money and wasting it… yes, wasting money to go to a close family member’s wedding. A waste). We’re going to Australia to spend Christmas with them. Christmas is a big deal in their family. My parents don’t give a crap about Christmas. Therefore, she will never understand.

In my mom’s world, spending money, airplane travel, and having fun seem to all be unnecessary. “Chris doesn’t care about us. He just wants you to spend time with his parents and his family. Do you really think he cares about us? I had (hand) surgery last week, and he didn’t even call to see how I was doing!” That’s because I told him it was minor and that you were fine. But she doesn’t care.

“Airplanes are dangerous. They crash. If your plane crashes, he is responsible for my daughter,” her voice getting louder at this point.

Time to end the call. The jealousy and absurdity were just getting to be too much.

Paranoid personality disorder

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The last time I was home, my mom went off at me for hours even after I was in bed at 10am to get ready for work the next day to tell me that Chris treats her and my dad “like dirt” and has zero respect for the two of them. The reason for this was that she claimed that Chris had never once in the last three years ever offered to pay for a meal for her and my dad, and that he just expected my parents to get the tab every time, except for that one time at In N Out Burger, which she says was a massive insult. The irony behind all this is that Chris has paid for many things for them, including vacations to the Grand Canyon and Vancouver, yet, she seemed to have forgotten all of that.

So given that this incident happened, I’m not sure I want Chris to see my parents before the wedding. He’s planning to go to San Francisco for work in two weeks, and he asked if I wanted him to go see my parents. My knee-jerk reaction was no unless he was adamant to pay the bill at whatever restaurant it would be at. He got annoyed at it, saying he refuses to play my mother’s games and that she always fights him for the bill anyway, and so it’s a lose-lose situation. “Why don’t you just do what you would normally do and not do everything as a reaction to your mother’s potential responses?” the therapist said today. It’s a valid point. So maybe I should just let him go see them.

We went through the DSM and came to the conclusion that my mother is almost a textbook example of paranoid personality disorder. She’s constantly distrustful of everyone and anyone, is hypersensitive and misinterprets compliments as backhanded insults. She holds grudges for every little thing that happens to her and always perceives herself to be the victim. Someone is always “hurting me so much,” as she always says. The examples throughout the course of my life are so many that I can’t even go through them all.

The therapist thinks that as part of my process for empathizing, I should keep this disorder model in mind when dealing with her and recognizing that it doesn’t make sense to act rationally with someone who is not rationale. But I’m not sure if I really think that will help me because Ed and I always thought she had some sort of disorder. With something like this, it’s nearly impossible to treat, and it’s even harder when the person doesn’t recognize that she has the problem. So it will never be acknowledged, treated, or cured. It’s an impossibility.

 

Wedding debrief

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I talked to my mom on the phone today since it was my first full day back from Europe, and she wanted a full download of the wedding events. I told her about everything from the food to the DJ to the fireworks, and of course, she said, “Wow, both their families must be rich!” I think if I told my mom that a couple got married in a haystack that she’d probably respond the same way. She wanted to know how much time exactly we spent with Chris’s parents, and if we gave a “decent” amount for the wedding, which is her way of trying to ask how much money we gave as a gift. There was no direct reply to that.

When it comes to money and how much people make, my mom tends to always assume that everyone else is rich except for her and my dad… and me, and that I tend to give too much to people who either don’t deserve it or need it. But she’ll always frame the questions as though I should be giving more. That’s the trap. So if I were to tell her an amount that seemed hefty, she’d respond and say I would go broke spending money that way on “everyone,” and then proceed to get mad at me. It’s the cycle of no-win situations when you are dealing with someone who likely has some sort of paranoid personality disorder. Everything is malevolent and a reason to be angry and suspicious and distrustful.

Hopeless hope

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I met with my therapist yesterday after not seeing her for about four months. She was busy sunbathing in the Hamptons while I was occupied with busy Mondays filled with revenue reports. We spent some time discussing my series of bad dreams of betrayal, my time in San Francisco, fights with my mom, and my friend who failed to be a part of my bachelorette weekend.

We spent the most time discussing why I always feel the need to defend the people my mother puts down. “If you know based on history that she will never see your point of view and will always use this as the beginning point of a fight, then why do you keep defending them?” she asked me.

Well, there are several answers to this. First is that I hate it when things are unjust, and I cannot stand people being attacked without any valid reason. Second, I am kind of deluded myself because I hopelessly hope that one day, she may actually listen to what I am saying and realize there are other perspectives other than her own. Third, it’s a lose-lose situation for me regardless of what I respond with because no response satisfies her, and she will find some way to turn the attack on me. If it’s not this conversation, it will be in the next conversation.

So at the end of the day, I just become more self-ingratiating by believing that I am standing up for what’s right when it actually causes even more agony for me. Maybe I can be just as deluded as my mother.

Shorter stays

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I’ve been discussing my mother’s situation with a few different people, and it looks like we all agree that perhaps I should shorten my stays when I visit home and potentially increase the frequency to make up for the fewer days. The last time I came in June, I was there for about five days, and luckily, no real fight happened; everything was as calm as it could have been. This time around, the stay was about 11 days, and we had four arguments varying in intensity and length. It really takes an emotional and psychological toll on me when these things happen; I feel stressed to the point where I can feel a physical change in my body, and then all I think about are all the dumb things she had said to me that made zero logical sense. It would be different if I didn’t care about them at all, but I really do; ultimately, I just want my parents to be happy, but it doesn’t seem that I can really make that happen on my own. What is really preventing them from being happy and leading full, rich lives is their own mindset and all the negativity that surrounds it. It’s their distrust of the world, their disgust of other people like my aunt who actually do lead happy lives despite having many elements of dysfunction and imperfection. They will always be like this, and it’s my life-long struggle to just accept them the way they are and the way they will continue to think.