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.
Listen HERE, world. I only go to therapy every other week, so dumb family shit that’s going to eat my brain until vodka makes it stop can’t happen during off weeks.
It’s not even worth detailing because they’re SUCH stupid conversations, but did you ever have a mundane discussion with your family that just crawls under your skin and colonizes? Yesterday with Dad, today with Mom — almost as if they’d tagged in and out.
Remind me again, WHY don’t I just send the therapy bills to my parents? Wait, what? “Owning my issues because I’m a grown-ass lady?” That doesn’t sound like me at all.
I’m so grateful to have so many influences outside my family. And for the therapist. SO MUCH FOR THE THERAPIST. (And obviously for my willing/ableness to work and tell heredity to go fuck itself.)
*deep breath*
Turning into my Mother, Lesson 643: Whine about your feelings so much and so often that people grow weary and distance themselves from you.
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.
I made a joke on Facebook that quoted the “Mean Girls” South Beach Fat Flush, where “all you drink is cranberry juice for 72 hours.” My mom emailed me asking me for details on the diet plan.
Can we all just take a moment to be grateful I’m not continuing this genetic clusterfuck?
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.)
I’m visiting my family today. Mom just made a blowjob joke, and my grandparents laughed their 86-year-old asses off. Just in case anyone wonders how I turned out this way.
“You, alright? I learned it by watching you!”
Smug Singleton 