Today I’m grateful for…
The growing disdain I feel for spending time with Cubu’s family. Possible religious conversion attempts aside, I feel slowly like I can’t stand being around them. I don’t want to have 5 hours of small talk, hear grandpa tell (yell) the same stories over and over, see grandma get cut off every time she tries to talk, fawn over the baby that’s too young to have anything going on, dealing with not-funny jokes constantly (Do I laugh? Do I not?), evading telling anything real to Cubu’s nosy mom because it would blow his cover, getting triggered by seeing his niece be neglected by her father the same way I was and being helpless to stop it. I feel so annoyed just thinking about it, then feel so ungrateful and snooty. And ashamed for having these thoughts when they’ve been nothing but gracious. Who am I to have an opinion on this, to be judging? They aren’t even my family. Not that I should judge mine either.
The growing gap between Cubu and I, as I have mostly SIA stuff to talk about that he can’t relate to and he just updates me on videogames and boardgame rules. The frustration and hopelessness I’m feeling at not connecting and having to listen to the rules of yet another board game I’m not even fucking playing. It’s like listening to CSPAN except it doesn’t even remotely apply to real life!
The growing resentment for Cubu constantly playing games and never trying to fix his life. He’ll have a problem and take no moves to deal with that, just escapes into a game. I want to yell at him, just DO something! Something that exists in the real world, something that doesn’t involve “game mechanics” and a controller. I just feel like I’m digging deeper and deeper into the real and he’s stuck in fantasy all the time. But he loves spending his time this way, who am I to be judging this? To think I’m doing any better? Am I jealous that he’s so capable of playing when I can rarely be that carefree? Or is it a bigger issue between us that I’m masking with this complaint? Probably both, and that alarms me.
The embarrassment and borderline identity crisis I feel at having so much bitterness and anger recently. I’ve been the way I’ve been for years and had prided myself on it. On being mostly calm, way too slow to anger, dissolving bitterness soon as I feel it – or so I thought. To realize I’m not the saintly version of myself that I thought I was building is not only extremely humbling but also confusing. I feel all sorts of things I didn’t use to feel, don’t know how to deal with them, AND don’t know if I fit the description of myself I had just a month ago. None of this feels like it should matter as much as it does. But it does.
The landscape and skyscape of where I live. The scrubby, arid land and rolling hills, the clear aquamarine rivers, the wildflowers, the stunning sunsets. The cedar and oak and baked earth smell every day. I’ll have to move someday because this land can’t support the population growth (we have been in a dought level for years now) and I miss it already. Or rather am appreciating it while I can.
Feeling sad that I have more of a relationship with that couple that visited me than I do with their daughter. For context, their daughter was my college roommate and we were inseparable. At some point that changed but I was already part of the family by then. Now her parents come to visit me, but her and I don’t know how to connect with each other anymore. Years ago she had a child on accident, and is a wonderful mom, but really suffers from thinking she’s boring no matter how much I tell her that’s not how I feel. Forming this relationship with you reminds me of what I could have had with her if something hadn’t held her back. Or maybe I wasn’t contributing properly back then, I’m not sure. But I don’t see us closing that gap and I miss her dearly every time I think of it.