Thank you, dcp. ♥
Xander: How? What? How? Giles: Three excellent questions.
Xander/Giles ,'Never Leave Me'
Goodbye and Good Riddance 2022: Hindsight is 20/22
Take stock, reflect, butch, moan, vent. We are all here for it.
Topic!Cindy - Jan 20, 2023 8:26:26 pm PST #45 of 105
What is even happening?
Cass - Jan 20, 2023 8:47:18 pm PST #46 of 105
Bob's learned to live with tragedy, but he knows that this tragedy is one that won't ever leave him or get better.
And I already feel like the worst daughter in the world relaying all this, when it is only half. She has been awful to me. And I mostly feel like I shouldn't let it out here, but I need to let it out, so I can let it go and forgive.
She has been truly awful to you. Even if she loves you.
Here is where we get to let out the things we need to go of, or not let go of depending on the thing. We're here for you.
So anyhow, that's where we were, until last weekend, when my dog developed Vestibular Disease, and we honestly thought she was dying. (She isn't.)
I thought my dog only had vestibular disease and then it suddenly turned into an emergency last weekend. She has discospondylitis which can be caused by bacteria, fungus or *shrug*. She's being treated, we are culturing and she has a good chance at a recovery. Pets are rough because they are family but they can't tell you exactly what is going on with them.
(Cindy)
Topic!Cindy - Jan 20, 2023 8:58:23 pm PST #47 of 105
What is even happening?
Oh Cass. Thank you, sweet girl. ♥
(I hope your dog is okay. It's so scary. Also, thank you for understanding about my mom.)
HTG, we should go out for drinks.
(My poor mom. I don't want to shame her. I just finally know what I lived through.)
Not sure what's wrong with Buffy yet (yes, that is her name), but we're trying.
(Also, seriously, Jennifer. Thank you. ♥ )
Topic!Cindy - Jan 20, 2023 9:13:52 pm PST #48 of 105
What is even happening?
Cindy wrote in Natter: "I keep thinking about meeting so many of you in person. I keep thinking about how real — how Velveteen Rabbit — we are to one another, even people like me, who only post here and then. Anyhow, I'm glad you're real.", and this echos my feelings perfectly and beautifully.
Shir. ♥
P.M. Marc - Jan 21, 2023 12:25:12 am PST #49 of 105
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Plei, I hope you and yours are okay. I miss you.
I miss you, too (email me, bb!). Also, that's a lot. Also, OMG, even the most loving parents become THE WORST when they start to decline, and AHAHAHAHA. I don't even want to start, and I'm sorry you're having to deal with a mom who is older, in pain, and has taken too much out on you.
(We're now mostly recovered from the COVID bout. Which I'm using as an excuse to not call my family members right now. See also, I don't even want to start.)
JenP - Jan 21, 2023 6:40:20 am PST #50 of 105
Oof, Cindy, that is way more than rough; I'm so sorry, and... yeah, do your best to take care of you in all this, but I know that can be hard. And, hell, yes, come here to vent, to chill, to do whatever.
Calli - Jan 21, 2023 7:15:08 am PST #51 of 105
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
Day-um, Cindy, that’s a lot. And love does not excuse abuse. I’m glad you didn’t get COVID on top of everything else.
Dana - Jan 21, 2023 7:39:11 am PST #52 of 105
"I'm useless alone." // "We're all useless alone. It's a good thing you're not alone."
Dealing with my grandfather after his Alzheimer's got bad was the worst. He was a different person.
Steph L. - Jan 21, 2023 7:55:30 am PST #53 of 105
Apparently if you're enough of a power nerd, there is nothing that cannot be flowcharted.
As Tim's dad's dementia progressed, he lost his filter for appropriate conversation, and would make sexual comments all the time. And it was really jarring not just because it was gross and inappropriate, but because it was such a 180 from his pre-dementia personality.
My dad turns 81 on Tuesday, and his personality is unchanged; unfortunately, he's just an asshole who it turns out I don't like very much.
My mom will be 77 this year and is still teaching yoga and hiking and camping (they stay in cabins now; that's the only concession to her age she's made). Over the summer she went to Italy for 2 weeks with a group from her church. I'm half convinced that she's Hob Gadling.
DavidS - Jan 21, 2023 7:57:37 am PST #54 of 105
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
(I thought that would take two posts. I'm kind of amazed it didn't.)
I think even in the middle of your unloading you still managed to edit out most of the mean things she said to you.
My mom was an alcoholic and when she got drunk she'd say the most purposefully hurtful things to me. And then forget what she said when she sobered up.
It caused me to emotionally distance myself from her in high school, and it took a lot of work to be there for her and forgive her when she was dying of cancer (after college).
But I was able to because I knew she truly loved me and despite those periods of her lashing out, she had undergone so much trauma and violence in her childhood that she had really been very heroic in damming that back and not passing it on to me. Self medicating with alcohol let some leaks spring out though.
I had a conversation with my sister this last year where a lot of family history came out which really made me understand both of my parents in a different context. All these broken pieces of my childhood memory suddenly making a new picture. (My sister is 8 years older than me so she had witnessed things when I was a baby.)
My sister herself has been living with cancer for the last 2+ years so I think she felt it was time to unlock some family secrets.