Good news

I’m not going to need surgery after all.
Sure there’s still some mysteries in the case of what caused the pain but the tools the professionals used deliver the insight of me being a perfectly healthy 32 year old lady. The only modification? An easily attainable supplement to help regulate my biological chemistry, seems simple enough.

Craciun Ferecit

I gave my husband a good laugh this year with gifting. I found a shirt of a band he loves Kreator, that plays on one of their songs ‘Satan is real’ with the red scrawlings of Santa is real on the back and a large menacing Santa face on the front. He loves it.
His folks also gave him a massive suprise. We open gifts the night before and they gave us a call from their Mexican resort around 7 to open up their gift . Inside there was a bag of lovely clothes for the kid and three custom thermos, but it was what was inside of the thermos that left us all shocked. The husband pulled out a printout that says student loan debt with the words crossed out in bright red. He’s stunned right and checks the website to verify what’s been done, and they really did it, they paid off 20,000. In student loan debt. In return though we have to make sure we get our essentials organized to join them in Mexico next year and with the savings their gift provides and the profit sharing he now gets at his job, it’s actually possible now.
We’ve never known his folks to be flamboyant lavish , and I tell him it probably was something they planned for awhile but only if he hit the right milestones like sticking around with a good job, taking care of family, finance, and home. Looks like he done good.

The actual day of the holiday we visited my dad and his wife for a steak dinner and mashed potatoes. Their house is mostly packed up for the upcoming move to Florida.
There’s still this disgusting strip of fly tape hanging over the dining room table covered in flies, his wife makes her usual ‘jokes’ about not wanting us around. Her son who lives in a renovated version of my old room isn’t around, he left with his girlfriend to go see her Kansas family. There’s still some good points though, the kid is laughing while she plays chase with her dad and my dad’s dog Coda in the yard. The movie was good and my dad does seem happy to have us visit to catch up, he always says we’re welcome any time but really that’s not the case. However I know his wife is the one to take the time to choose gifts for us. Sometimes I think her abrasiveness is more of a cultural divide in humor but then I remember the fly strip and realize that doesn’t quite fit either. For their gifts in turn I brought them a big box of food, frozen meats and whatnot since they’re in the moving process.

We watch Don’t look up as we eat and as we leave make loose plans for New Years visiting pending knowing the husband’s work schedule.

Back home we end the night watching Major Payne and it’s a good day.

Dear in laws

Dear in laws

Like a lot of families you can be fun & positive & I can enjoy your company, but you have your emotionally abusive aspects too. This makes things difficult to navigate, for me, as I was brought up by an abusive mother, so I’m not great at standing up for myself or setting boundaries, but I am learning & trying & WILL get there.

Sister in law. Being tired is not a competition. Saying “yeah but you haven’t been working 20 hours a day and getting 4 hours sleep” doesn’t make me feel sorry for you or make me think “oh gosh maybe I should give you some special dispensation because your such a good person & work so hard”. I have actually been working about 20 hours a day because I had my day job & then we were moving into the house that you & your partner have provided for us (for you to control us from, no doubt) so……suck it. Maybe you shouldn’t do your extremely demanding xmas job? It’s a bit much to ask someone to work 20 hours a day, is it not? When I imagine myself saying that to someone, like you said it to me, I feel rude, and more than a little bit holier than though, I must say.

Brother in law. You’re very funny & likable but also very controlling. This makes you difficult to navigate.

Mother in law. Oh gosh you are quite depressed and anxious. And you don’t do anything to help yourself. You’ll insist on providing dinner but hurt your back by doing tgis & then bitch & moan about that the whoke time.

Dear Stephen,

What can I say to you that I haven’t already said? 🙂 Well, I had my Covid Booster vaccine a few days ago. The Moderna one this time. I think about you even more at christmas. I remember you would always spend christmas day at your parents house, with your daughters. But you would always come back home to me at the end of every day. It’s still not, and will never be quite the same without you. How can it be? But please do one thing for me, have a party up there. Every christmas and when it’s your birthday, and every new year. Each year that passes by, means that I’m one year closer to someday seeing you again. I feel the same about my gran passing away. She too, was a total sweetheart. Please keep watching over me. Merry Christmas and Happy New year. 😊

Dear Snowy, Mitsy, and Riley,

It breaks my heart that I never had the chance to see you three again. I was intending to, just as soon as I could finally leave hospital. Yet, I wasn’t able to predict that I’d end up staying in hospital for months, rather than weeks. I still miss you three as much as I miss every other pet who has passed away. It was circumstances that were out of my control. The medical authorities decided where to put me after I could leave hospital for good. I’m sorry that I became unwell. It was inevitable. I wish it wasn’t, course. You all may just be pets to SOME people, but you three were much more than that. will always be thinking about you three, forever more. See you up there when it’s finally my time. My three precious star’s in the sky.

you are my best friend. i want to be yours

First I will note that I fear being melodramatic. Sorry in advance if that is the case. Second, I know if I could that I would scatter this entire page with “im sorry”s for things that probably weren’t even wrongs. So I’m going to get it out now. If it is possible that any of the things I worry I may have done wrong actually were wrong, I’m sorry. That’s a horrible way to start a letter. I am insecure. It’s obvious. I am insecure and fearful, and I’m anxious because of it. I fear “using” you or your friendship with ulterior motives. I fear idolizing you and comparing myself to you in unhealthy ways or using you as the standard with which I beat myself. (sorry for the melodrama.) I fear I don’t know my own heart. I fear that my same-sex attraction will put barriers in our friendship, real or imagined. I fear myself either going too far or being too reserved. I fear scaring you away or causing you harm. We both know that we are both physical people. How the touch of a friend is like a recharging of the soul. I am terrified of abusing that consciously or subconsciously due to same-sex attraction. (Objectively, you are gorgeous, and I know you know that). I fear straining our friendship with insanely high expectations that I should only be expecting from a man I may marry one day. I fear being too selfish, taking and not giving. I fear I will always be too quiet, because in my anxiety my mind goes blank in conversation and I have no clue what to say, until after you drop me off at my dorm when suddenly I think of a million different things I wished I had said. Imagined conversations. I sometimes get the feeling that I am acting like a sick puppy around you and _____, never leaving of my own volition but always waiting to be politely “kicked out”. I fear losing you. I fear drifting away. I fear pushing you away. While I do fear the possibility of putting you on a pedestal and idolizing you, objectively there are many ways in which you excel that I need to take note of. Because you inspire me greatly.

I honestly think you will change many lives (you definitely already have…). I’ve never seen anyone with as much of a genuine passion for life and art and hard work and knowledge as you have. You’ve worked so diligently getting your degree and you already have experience in your field. Hell, you have experience in LIFE. You have concrete plans. You have a vision. You have fire. You have purpose. When I first met you, I was put to shame by the amount of stories you had to share and art you’ve made and people you’ve met and lessons you’ve learned. The students you’ll teach are only going to be better after meeting you. You’ve already taught me a lot, and I’m not even a student of yours. “Can you direct me?” was a shitty nervous joke that I made in my own misunderstanding of what you meant, but it’s actually a great Freudian-slip sort of plea. If I could I would have you direct my life and show me what I’m doing wrong and what I can do instead. You are, inadvertently; I also fear that I am just “copying” you one way or another. My own parents warned me of that. I know I’m capable of disingenuity and being a chameleon. It’s difficult when it seems more and more that I am allowing myself to “like” or be “into” things I held myself back from. Crocheting, braids, updos, earrings, nice clothes, even Christian contemporary music and abstract art – two things I had firmly decided I absolutely hated. You’ve lifted me up to see that I *can* like what I like and you have softened my heart to the things that I thought I totally despised. You are not afraid to be yourself no matter how many people try to tear you down. You learned that lesson early, I think. Another “im sorry” for how slowly I’m learning it. (or maybe you’d tell me I should have a backbone and that growing is nothing to apologize for).

Thank you for being the greatest older sister I never had.

I was on point

With my gift shopping this year, at least With my mom and brother. I got mom the same finger flipping gnome that we spotted at linch her last visit (she knows just the neihbir she wants to face it toward), and my brother a dungeons and dragons cookbook with a pair of dicey sweatpants that say this is how I roll.

In turn they got me set up with some much needed fresh kitchenware and care products I’d been delaying purchase on. My mom helped my husband find a new addiction in ship puzzle building. Now he has plans to invest in a display cabinet to keep all of his future projects safe.

Mom also gets news that the doctor who performed her 95,000 dollar back surgery died in a personal plane accident. She’s saddened by this and also brings up the tale of the orthodontist who fixed her mouth in her teens who met an eerily similar fate.

After my folks left we dove into our next home renovations, with a good deal replacing our broken down dishwasher, stove, fridge and microwave. This comes as a massive relief for me, having been making due with 2 burners and no dishwasher for a number of years now.
Lo! Not all news was good news as emails were sent out to everyone in Colorados school districts over potential violence being instigated through tik tok, particularly warning for the December 17th date. The day before this wary date I was picking my kid up from school and a group of mixed high school boys and girls lay in the grass shooting finger guns at passerby. I emailed with my kids teacher who persuades me to trust that she’ll be there and there was no credible threat before sending her in the next day, and while nothing necessarily violent happens as I’m walking to school that day to get her. I hear fireworks being lit off close to school bot helping with my latent anxieties.

Tomorrow I get an xray to see if I have a wayward piece of medical tech hanging out in my abdomen somewhere while the rest of the kitchen appliances are installed, grateful to have the means to spend this time to fortify health and hearth.