By: Revanche

Good Things Friday (53)

February 21, 2020

If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?

Current total: Lakota, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.


1. Actually my first challenge was also a good thing. The success of the thing I was organizing was why it became a little too much, but that’s still a good thing!

2. PiC and I split the work on registration for kindergarten. I am not ready.

3. I found Ann Leckie e-books at the library – woot!

Challenges: I was working nonstop last week organizing support for a loved one. I most definitely bit off a little more than I could chew and I most definitely pretended that I didn’t. My checking account was a total mess so I opened a new checking account at Ally just for their funds so that my neurotic money managing self could clear things up and that was helpful. Then I ordered a gift without actually reviewing the order and that was a bit of a mess, I had to frantically message the seller to tell them not to send ME the gift. *FACEPALM* Work was a mess of many messes to clean up.

4. Watching that episode of Psych where Juliet’s dad comes in and tries to reconcile with her at the same time as pulling another con, I found myself curiously ok. For the past two years, seeing fictional characters clashing with their fathers (and especially this where her father also conned her) hurt. Why didn’t my dad love me as a father should? Why didn’t my dad care enough as much about our well-being as his? Not this week. I had just told a beloved mentor of our estrangement. An excerpt of what I shared:

I have needed all this time and careful intentional revisiting of the facts to help my heart adjust to the reality that was painful for a long time. I usually make painful decisions with my head and then let me heart catch up, this was no different! Even though it is a sad and regretful situation, I am slowly healing.
I’ve done what he should have done – protected my family – and I will heal from the less obvious wounds he inflicted, like feeling doubts that anyone can love me if my own parent didn’t. I am slowly accepting that his choices and actions don’t make me a lesser person. Even if he couldn’t love me the way a parent should, others do, and even if I have moments of doubt, I will grow away from them.
Not that I don’t still get angry at him. I do. Every single time I have a flare-up that’s incapacitating, and feel too painful and fatigued to exist, and I have to keep working because I spent so much money caring for him instead of saving for my future when he was much more able than I, that he was a selfish liar knowing he was hurting my health. THAT part still makes me angry.
For all that anger that’s left, I am lucky and I can see that. I got to choose to walk away before he drained us dry and ruined my marriage and future. We aren’t in the place we could have been, but not even he could destroy the fruits of my careful money management and that gives me a redemptive feeling of control. I think that choice I took when I did made a big difference in my healing.
The thing I now work on is how I feel about the future. I do not want to feel obligated to again endanger that recently saved financial foundation for either of them. As a daughter in this family, it’s very hard to say that. Taking care of your elders in their old age is ingrained in your mental and emotional self down to the cellular level! But he abused my sense of duty for 20 years, he would have let me die of the pain and despair, for his own benefit. I had told him how severe and debilitating the pain was, to the point of suicidal ideation, and that didn’t change his behavior other than to stop him insisting that we have the 14 hour wedding ceremony and reception that he said was necessary. (Because that’s just what everyone does and he wanted to look like everyone else.) But he still demanded his prerogatives like a bottle of the finest ($$$) liquor so he could share with his friends and pretend he had money. So I am working on weaning myself off that gut level sense of obligation.
I don’t want it. If I keep saying that, it too will slowly become ok.

5. The refresh work at the rental is nearly done! Details to come.

6. I’d forgotten, it’s been so many weeks since I’ve felt up to it, how fulfilled I feel when I get to go to a store, pick out a new food to cook, AND get to cook it in the same weekend. It did entirely wipe me out but the fact is, I haven’t been close to feeling up to doing that much in so long. I loved the feeling of anticipation and it renewed my sense of wanting to cook and eat. I hate that dull feeling when I don’t have the energy to think or cook anything new. I love the zing of chasing down new recipes I might be able to make.

7. It “only” took me six weeks to take our new robot vacuum out of the box, charge it, and install the app. I finally ran it! It’s been kind of fascinating to watch and also it makes me very self conscious about all the stuff cluttering our floors. I’m in yet another period of transition in my office where lots of boxes and bags are strewn about. We’re in yet another cycle of: organizing, decluttering, package up things meant to go to new homes, and donating. None of this makes it easy for a hard-working robot vacuum just trying to clean up these floors! It was pretty distracting at first as I figured out how to get myself and my towers of STUFF out of the way. JB was fascinated by it too. The only one who thought the robot vacuum was nothing special was Sera. Go figure. She’s normally a basket case about anything too new.

:: It has been A WEEK. How was your week? How do you say “no” to a sense of obligation that will only harm you? What makes cooking fun for you?

4 Responses to “Good Things Friday (53)”

  1. I wanted to say something flippant about how that episode made us realize that Shatner can actually act and has been underutilized much of his career… but then you followed it up with that powerful excerpt which just made me want to give you a jedi-hug.

    *insert hang in there kitten pic*
    nicoleandmaggie recently posted…Ask the grumpies: What is UP with VA politicians?My Profile

  2. When my older child went into kindergarten, I was blindsided by the paperwork and records required. I had some vague idea that we would show up at our neighborhood school and tell the teacher their name. Turns out, one has to apply to various kindergartens and hope to be accepted. Luckily, I had a friend who asked where we had applied, and filled me in when I looked blank.

    For the younger child, I was determined to do better. I did manage to apply, although sibling preference made that part easy. But I was still scrambling to get everything together. I don’t think it ever gets better.

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