Aunt: “You look good, your outfit looks like an Ann Taylor ad.”
Me, aloud: “Thanks!”
Me, mentally: “Your outfit looks like ‘I have questions.'”
Praise be to any/all deities for providing me so many years of What Not to Wear, and other external influences to counteract an apparently genetic inclination to hide one’s body in giant clothes, or wear sweatpants to family parties.
P.S. I am a petty and small person.
Via the NYT Well Blog: Writing Your Way to Happiness:
Told y’all writing was my therapy. I’m a little pissed that this apparently makes me just like everyone else. But a) I already knew that, and b) given the familial evidence at hand, I think journaling may be the only thing that makes the women in my family shut the fuck up once in a while, so there’s that.
Every day I drive past a billboard for a local support hotline, and it says, “Your problems are yours. Don’t blame your mother.”
And yes, absolutely — I’m a grown-ass person and I like to think I own my Crazy. I’m taking steps to fix it, and I try to warn the villagers whenever shit’s ’bout to get real.
At the same time… Are you sure about that, billboard? Haaaaaave you met my mother? I love her, and I don’t BLAME her, per se, but… I mean, c’mon, it’s pretty safe to say the apple didn’t fall far from the batshit.
I love spending time with my family. Well, OK, not really. But I do enjoy the opportunity to see my genetic potential for Crazy in its natural habitat and take steps to steer around it. It’s like a red traffic alert on your GPS: “Oh! Well, better not take THAT road.”
True, we’ve already established that I live on Uptight Pike, take frequent tours of the OCD Factory, and have become Foursquare mayor of the Nunnish Modesty Boutique. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m finding myself at Hoarding-Precious-Moments Junction.
Every time I spend time with certain members of my family, the five stages of grief happen in my brain.
Except rather than acceptance, the final stage is praying to all available deities that it’s not too late for me to fight heredity.
Maybe add a bonus sixth stage of eating feelings, which pretty much starts the cycle right over again.
I know I’m bound to turn into my mother in some respects, but I’m *thisclose* to asking my closest friends for reassurance on others. (I haven’t, because my ex would say I should have more faith in myself, and even *I* would say, “If you don’t want to be like that, then just don’t be.” So I’m trying. No guarantees, though.)
Smug Singleton 