Monday, March 1, 2010

Day ???

I have stopped counting the days.

One day I woke up and decided that I am not going to devote anymore energy to this.

And when I say "this" I mean that analyzing of the implications of alienation from my parents and my sisters.

It sucked but wasn't surprising when I didn't hear from my family for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's.

But it also feels very freeing.

On Christmas Day, my husband and I did something that I had always talked about doing but never did because we would be spending that time with family- we helped feed the homeless.

We volunteered through Union Station Homeless Services along with several hundred other volunteers. We feed over 7,000 meals that day.

It was the best Christmas ever!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Day #112 Happy Belated Birthday, Mom

It's been 112 days since I spoke with my parents.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday.  Her 69th birthday.  She is 30 years older than me, so I am keenly aware of her age.  This year, I didn't call her or send her a card.  It was difficult for me to actively ignore her birthday.

With all the other years, I looked forward to celebrating her birthday in an ostentatious way.  Last year, Ed and I took my mom and dad to Cirque Du Soleil with VIP tickets and Rouge tent access.  I had been to Cirque at least six times and enjoyed every single perfermance but this one time topped all of the others combined.  

We had cocktails and appetizers, special bathrooms, vip parking, bottled water passed out by models-- it was luxe.  I thought that I had finally found something that she would have been happy about.  The show was ethereal and dreamy.  We didn't have to wait in line.  We were treated like celebrities. 

But all afternoon, all my mother could say was that it was a waste of money.  She wouldn't crack a smile or say that she enjoyed herself.  I was crestfallen.  I wanted her to have a great time.  She was stone faced, reserved and even looked bored.  Unbelievable!  I was annoyed by the end of the afternoon and felt like I maybe I had wasted my money.  That evening, I felt like it was so hard to get through to my mom, to connect with her.  I thought "Are we so different that we can't even appreciate a circus together?"

I went to bed crying a little, blaming myself for not knowing what I could give that would possibly make my mother happy.  I haven't thought of anything, yet.



Happy birthday, Mom.  I wish everything was different between us.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Day #92- "Sometimes Life is Pretty Difficult"

--Is what the older, down-on-his-luck, man in the grocery store said to me today before he bade me good-bye.  I was buying supplies for the restaurant when he approached me out of all the other shoppers.  He told me that something was wrong with his car, that he had to go up north and could I please let him buy my groceries with some sort of card that he had and then give him the cash for it.

"I'm not sure," I said wondering what the heck he meant.  So I skeptically lined up in the check-out lane then the man helped me unload the 10 gallons of milk and 8 packages of berries.  I guess it was some sort of food stamp card and the cashier gave me a funny look.  I pretended that the man and I were together and asked her to give me a club card.  She just shook her head and proceeded with the transaction without hassle.  The amount came to something like 43 bucks.  We walked to the exit and he gave me a sheepish smile.  He was apologetic and thankful at the same time.  I felt bad for having been a skeptic so I gave him a fifty dollar bill.

When he said that "Sometimes life is pretty difficult," my heart broke a little for him.  He said it in a way where the weariness of a hundred lifetimes seemed to have pulverized his bones to meal, but there he stood, still trying to live.

I walked into the grocery store with my mind filled with my own troubles and problems.  Then someone who (I'm sure with all my heart) is struggling for basic survival asks me for help, I can't help but feel chastened.

I'm only struggling for the survival of my life as I know it, not for survival, not like him.

I cried all morning for that man.  I should have told him that he was going to be okay--that he was going to make it.

But all I managed to say was "Yeah, I know".

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Day # 91- Things Happen The Way They Are Supposed To

It's been 91 days since my parents and I have spoken.

I can't believe that I'm still alive despite the numerous problems that have been coming down the pipeline for me.  Miraculously, this morning,  I was chipper.  I was getting coffee and this woman cuts me off as we enter the Starbucks just so she wouldn't have to stand behind me.  Her mouth is tight and her eyes are inflated and her energy is shoving people away.  She barked her order to the Barista, confirming that she was a bit of a pill and that maybe she was under some kind of stress.

I judged her.  I did.  I was all smiles and happy- not a care in the world-- high and proud of myself for having turned in my application one day early.  "Look how awesome I can be,"  I thought to myself as I made an extra effort to be extremely polite to the Barista, hoping to shame the woman who had cut me off by demonstrating the glaring contrast between how she did things and how civilized people act.

Why can't she be happy like me?  Later in the morning, I was grocery shopping for the restaurant.  I didn't have enough cash on me so I put the balance on my credit card.  "Declined", said the cashier.  "What?  I'm sure there's some mistake.  Please try it again."  She ran the card again then turned her monitor so that I could read the results for myself.

My no limit credit card had just limited me.  "For $80 dollars?  What the F%#@!"  Suddenly my day was ruined and I was going around like the woman from earlier who was a bitch.  All because of the decline.  Why do they have to use the word declined anyway.  Why not reject or screw you or go screw yourself.

All I know is that things are getting progressively hairy as the days pass and I still don't have a buyer.  I see my life as I've known it fall into the Arctic Ocean like entire pieces of glacier subjected to global warming.

I know that I should have faith and that things happen the way they're supposed to.  Just like after global warming takes it's full affect, there will still be a planet Earth.  We just don't know if it will be inhabitable.  That's kinda the way I look at these catastrophic changes going on in my life.  I'll still have a life  after all the shit hits the fan, I just don't know if it will be inhabitable.

Mom and Dad-- hope you're proud.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Day #90- It is done.

It's been 90 days since I've spoken with my parents.

Last night, my phone logged a missed call from my mom.  I was shocked, disbelieving that my very stubborn mother would break our stalemate so early in the game.

I didn't let my husband know that I was secretly pleased but I was.  "She wants to talk to me.  She misses me!"  I felt smug.  But part of me thought that she wasn't really calling me to talk to me.  "Maybe she was calling to let me know that my Uncle was in the hospital or something," I figured.

So I picked up the phone from the coffee table and pressed the play button.  She had tricked me.  She had my son call me on her phone.  Oh well.  The stalemate stands.

On a brighter note, I overnighted my Pen Fellowship application today, 15 minutes before the post office closed.  What a relief!  It took me three weeks to put the application together and it wasn't easy.  But it is done.  I'll keep you posted.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Day #88- Mustering Up The Courage To Be A Writer.

It's day 88 and I still haven't spoken to my parents.

So in the middle of the greatest economic collapse of my lifetime, I am trying to switch careers and become a writer.  I'm in a workshop, I'm taking classes at UCLA, I've written a screenplay based on a short story I wrote in the spring and now I'm facing down a deadline for a fellowship.

I've managed to do all this while I've been separated from the parental units.  It makes me wonder if I should have made the psychic break from them years earlier.  The usual self-doubt is there but the fears of "Am I any good" aren't magnified by my parents incessant questioning of every single decision I make.

It works out because they didn't approve of my desire to be a writer.  It isn't practical and is more often a low paying, if not, no paying kind of job.  They figure that if you have a half a brain, you should use it to be a radiology technician or  at the very least a nurse.  If you show any kind of above average intelligence, then one should be an attorney or doctor.  Period.

So, on the eve of this fellowship application that I should be wrapping up right this second, I'm taking a moment to write this post to let you know and to reaffirm it for myself, that there is no other option.  To live, we must try for our dreams.  There is no shame in failing.  The shame is in failing to try.  Even if your parents aren't behind you or if they are actively against you.  

Sometimes, we have to be our own mother and father.  Wish me luck. 

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Day # 87- You are dead to me.

It's been exactly 87 days since I last spoke with my mom and dad.

We met for a late lunch at the creperie down the street from my apartment. After they ordered lunch, they told me that they were cutting me off financially. With all my many siblings, they decided that they couldn't afford to help everyone. Well, actually-- they just couldn't afford to help me.
What the hell?

"What about the others?" I asked in disbelief. "Mom and Dad, I get that you are struggling and I get that you are afraid. That's cool. But if you need to marshall your resources, why not cut across the board and diminish your financial aid to all the other sisters and ex-son-in-law and his family?" I argued, hoping that this logic would spare me.

But my father just yelled back, saying that the decision was already made and that I should just accept it.

I stood up, thanked them for choosing me to be the sacrificial lamb, asked for the check, paid it, then turned around and walked away. I haven't seen them since that day. I haven't spoken with them, either.

Yes, maybe it's time for me to be fully self-sufficient. I get that. I truly do. But I can't help but feel that I have been hung out to dry. To this day, they are still giving money to my sister's ex-husband and his parents and brother! But they stopped helping me.

Now, I am facing a world of hurt in the form of pending foreclosure and possible bankruptcy.

Oh well, as you will see in the following posts, this is just the a little part of what it's like in my family.