Enjoying some gingerbread coffee cake for second breakfast here. Happy non-working-Monday to all out there. Merry Christmas if that's your thing.

I followed smonster's lead and gifted myself clean sheets last night (as well as a mattress rotation, while I was at it) and had a marvelous sleep last nighth.

Laura I'm just mystified why anyone would not want you in their life, you are just such a kind and wonderful person. But family dynamics can be....complicated, I guess.

I had some really interesting conversations with my (half) sister while back in VA dealing with Dad's failing health. She and her mom have been at odds since she was old enough to get on a bike and ride away, and she's always pushed back super hard against strictures (both actual and inferred.) We were able to Rashomon a few scenarios, mostly just from her POV as the child and my POV as an adult (19 years older) who was told about scenarios by her parents but not physically part of them. And of course I have very clear vivid memories of her childhood with Dad that she doesn't recall at all because her parents split when she was only 5 so she doesn't really remember him being part of her daily life.

So many interactions that had looked totally reasonable and loving to me from a parental POV are remembered as manipulative and triggering for her. Also how sometimes she would describe an event of "non traditional parenting"[1] to her friends, and then to her friends' parents, and a situation would quickly snowball from loving discipline to "OMG that's child abuse!" Her audience definitely affects how she recalls and interprets some things.

[1] Background: my sister's mom is openly Wiccan and incorporated a lot of Animalism into parenting style. The "quack quack little duck follow me this way" was super cute when she was a toddler. Being barked at (literally) to heed and obey as a middle schooler did not go over as well.

Family dynamics can indeed be complicated. How things look as adults is so often a different picture. As a child how life is within our walls is all we really know.

Most wise council seem to feel it is a natural need for sons with new marriages and families to exert independence from a very close relationship and dependence on his parents. They did even live with us for a year after they were married. We were extremely close. Another school of thought is that his outbursts and rejection has put him in a corner he doesn't know how to get out of. I'm holding on to a hope that it is also a natural progression to remember that he had a really lovely childhood and loving parents and come back to the fold.

This also reminds me that it is a natural human thing to have a middle age crazy episode, which I totally missed being now old aged. I think I am allowed to do it late, right?

Oh of course! Mid-life crisis is less about chronological age than about having been in one stage of life long enough that you desperately want to just start over fresh.

Yes, I have been in this stage beyond long enough and am ready to start fresh. Good way to think about it.

I recently saw a man living out his middle-age crisis - driving along, little red sportscar with the top down (during a warm spell), '60s rock blasting, thinning hair waving in the breeze.

Well, for his sake and his loved ones, I hope it always feels like that.

(cross posted from 2023 skidoo)

Hello all you gorgeous beings

Best wishes for a tolerable 2024!

I can't form a narrative at the moment but it's been too long since I told you all I love you and I'm glad you're in my life

I can't form a narrative at the moment but it's been too long since I told you all I love you and I'm glad you're in my life

Back at ya, Laga.

Momentary pity party. Today, I think, is my 2nd grandchild's 1st birthday. I wasn't told a date. I've never seen him except on other people's FB pages. I haven't seen the 3-year-old since before he could crawl. It sucks. Maybe this year things will change. There is nothing more I can do to make that happen. I'll still send Gabriel happy birthday thoughts and snoop on the internet in hopes of catching pictures somewhere.

I have cousins I've never met....not that that's the same, but it's weird. Estrangement's not unusual for the larger J clan, though. unfortunately.

I'm sorry, Laura. That's heartbreaking. And honestly bewildering to us who know how awesome and big-hearted you are. I hope your son and his DW come around really, really soon. {{{Laura & Brendon}}}